Storm Chaser
by Dancing in the Minefield
Summary: What with Hunting problems, unwanted quests, and nutty, super-powerful girls out to blow up the world, it's not like arrogant ghost kings - or one arrogant ghost king - is going to shake Thalia much, right?
1. I Get A Terrible Welcome Back

Let me get one thing straight here.

This whole fiasco wasn't my fault. I didn't ask to get caught up in a secret war or be forced to fall in love. It's not like you would, either, if you were me.

Guess what happened anyway?

Yeah, that's right.

I don't even remember when this began, but I'm pretty sure it was around the beginning of summer a few years ago. It's kinda hard to keep track of time when you're immortal. Or was, in my case.

So. Fiasco. Forced love. Right.

It started off as a normal sort of week, or month, or whatever. You know, late night hunting, campfires, magic weather protection, the works. It went downhill from one random morning with nausea and lightheadedness. I ignored it, because Hunter or not, we weren't completely immune to the occasional headache (usually caused by getting clubbed over the head by Ari, chief mischief-maker of the group). So I just ate some chocolate and attempted to fall asleep last night.

I didn't get any warning the next day, either, but life likes to jump up in our faces and yell "BOO!" like that.

"My lady, we are ready to go." I stood in the large, silver tent where I always did in the morning, reporting back to Artemis. She raised her head and studied me with large, yellow-silver eyes. Whenever I looked at them, it felt like they could see into my soul and read my feelings.

"What is wrong, my lieutenant?" Her voice was full of concern, like she sincerely cared about what happened to us. Which, I guess, she did, but this was unusual. Artemis never showed much emotion, much less caring ones. The lightheaded feeling crashed down on me again. The tent looked a bit wobbly, and I collapsed on the fur carpet of the goddess's tent.

"I m-miss Luke," I choked out, with something like a mental fog clouding my thoughts. It felt like my mouth had developed a mind of its own. This was strange; I liked my image of strength to stay intact, even if people managed to worm past my mental defenses. This was very not me. Besides, I was _over_ Luke. For good.

Which could not bode well, not in the least.

See, Artemis understood that a thought was a thought, and sometimes they flitted in and out without her Hunters' consent. It was okay as long the thought disappeared fast and wasn't spoken, because that way it meant nothing. But admitting it out loud was a one-way ticket straight out of the Hunters and into bad stuff.

I'd just bought myself a one-way ticket straight out of the Hunters and into bad stuff.

"What?" Artemis's voice had lost its softness, revealing a hard tone full of disbelief and anger packed into a single syllable.

"What just – "

"You remember your oath." The goddess's voice was as cold as ice. "Daughter of Zeus, you pledged yourself to me, and it is only with death or disloyalty can you be cast out. You are no longer welcome in my domain. I will not kill you, for you have served me well and faithfully – until now. You are dismissed. Do not seek to return."

The fog retreated, and I managed a slippery grasp of what Artemis was saying. It felt like swallowing a large cube of ice carved from a glacier. I mean, I'd taken an oath, and I hadn't broken it. At least, I was pretty sure I hadn't. And now the goddess was kicking me out for something that wasn't my fault?

When I saw her eyes, gleaming like frozen silver, the protest withered in my throat. It kind of fails when you try to defy a goddess, especially one that's really, really mad.

I lifted the silver tiara off my head and laid it at Artemis's feet, bowed, then backed out of the tent, saying nothing. A small, hard knot formed in my stomach as I saw the goddess turn her back on me. I stepped out of the tent, and promptly collapsed on the spot.

When I woke up, I struggled to my feet, then collected my few things and headed in the direction I hoped lead to camp without a look back.

A couple days later, I was making progress towards camp. I was using the safe houses that Luke, Annabeth, and I had built all those years ago, moving from area to area. It would've been easier to hitch a ride with Apollo, but that meant putting up with haikus, cockiness, and the pure terror of being up in the air. Especially if he insisted I drive again, and the memory of the last time still made me shudder. Crashing a flaming bus into a lake from a couple thousand feet up in the air is not my idea of fun. However hot he might be, I was never going to accept an offer having to do with the sun chariot from Apollo again.

And then, of course, there was his single (and horrific) catch phrase: "Hey, baby. I'm a god, y'know. You wanna take a ride in my sun chariot?" I cracked a smile thinking about it.

Sitting down on a flat rock in the middle of a small stream, I dunked my head underwater for a couple seconds and enjoyed the coolness of the water before a pesky naiad would come to yell at me. Raising my head, I shook my head to get the last droplets out of my spiky black hair. I'd made sure that I kept some resemblance to my inner self, even if we - I mean, _they_ - had uniforms.

Crackling sounded in the bushes behind me, accompanied by a low growl and hiss.

A snarling rattlesnake head thrust out of the tree, followed by six more equally ugly ones mounted on long scaly necks. Each one had a plastic bib dangling from it reading,' I'M A GOOD LITTLE MONSTER!' Saliva dripped from its maws as the Hydra dragged itself through the underbrush, chewing one of my boots that I'd probably dropped a mile back. I made a very heroic squeaking noise, then pulled out my spear and started jabbing and slashing. The monster didn't like that.

The head closest to me shot green acid, and hit a weathered pine next to me. It wailed in outrage, and blasted the tree with acid from all seven heads. The tree melted into green goop. I backed away. I couldn't keep this up for long, nor could I cut off any of its heads, so I had to stay on the defensive.

What did Hercules use to kill the Hydra in the old stories? He had help, I remembered, and his chariot driver was using a torch to sear the stumps of the Hydra's necks once Hercules cut them off. Fire! I needed fire. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The Hydra lunged at me again, and I nearly lost my concentration.

A white-hot streak of lightning blasted down from the clear blue sky – a literal bolt out of the blue – and exploded the Hydra into green slime that vaporized as it hit, the way monster guts tend to do. I bent double, my hands on my knees as I caught my breath. That trick had cost me more energy than I could afford.

I heard a crunching noise behind me, and turned around so fast I thought I got whiplash. Pointing my spear threateningly in front of me, I ignored the pain in my neck and stared into the bushes, stilling my breathing.

A black sword point was thrusted out in return. It was followed by a pale, skinny but muscled hand and arm in a leather aviator's jacket. I recognized it.

Nico di Angelo stepped out into the half-shadowy light in front of me.

He looked different from when I'd last seen him, three years ago. Dressed in black jeans, combat boots, and the same aviator's jacket that fit a lot better on him now, Nico seemed much older than he actually was – fifteen. He would've passed off as a moping teenager in a city if his Stygian iron sword wasn't pointed at my chest. His mop of messy black hair still hung in his dark eyes making him look almost the same other than he was now taller than me.

"You," he snarled. "Where are the rest of your Hunter girls? Killing more innocent people?"

Okay, so he was _really_ different from when I last saw him. I backed up a couple steps.

"I don't want to talk about it." I didn't know why I wasn't chopping his head off already.

"Feeling remorse? Wishing you were dead? I can help you with that. . ." He lunged. I slapped my bracelet and the Medusa head spiraled out. Nico flinched, but slashed down with his cold black sword. I snapped up my spear to block it, and the tip ripped through his jacket.

I stepped back again. Nico looked down; then walked coldly forward to stand in front of me. He raised his sword. He's the enemy right now, I convinced myself. You'll get skewered if you don't focus. I kept my spear point level.

"Well, if you want a fight -" I was cut off again by his sword. He'd improved since I'd last seen him.

Nico had a kind of wild look in his eyes. I recognized it as anger. Pure anger, beyond any reason. It hit me. I went limp. Then I found myself pinned to a tree. Nico was holding the flat of his black blade at my neck.

"I didn't kill your sister!" I choked out. I mean, geez, talk about holding a grudge.

He let a fraction of the pressure off the blade. "You're missing your princess crown."

I grimaced. "Yes. Yes I am. Wonderful observation, by the way."

"Where are your Hunter girls?" His eyes hardened.

"I told you I don't want to talk about it."

Nico smiled darkly. "There are . . . other ways to draw conclusions." I narrowed my eyes.

I felt something cold whisp in my chest, around my heart. I winced. Then it retreated.

"Ah, I see. Well, um, sorry about . . . y'know," Nico stepped back and sheathed his black sword, then ran his hand through his hair. "It was the jacket. Truce?" he asked, sticking out a hand.

"Truce," I said, shaking it like it was poisonous. Then I looked at my jacket. "What's wrong with my jacket?"

Looking at his feet, Nico mumbled, "It's silver. I owe you, I guess. Camp Half-Blood?"

I eyed him suspiciously. "Why are you helping me?"

"Because it's fair."

"Life isn't fair."

He muttered something under his breath that sounded like, "Why do I even try?"

Nico slung my bag over his shoulder, and pulled me very, _very _close to him with the other. He smelled kind of like fresh soil that got dug up, with a trace of some kind of flower. An almost spicy smell.

Before I could give it more thought, the shadows had wrapped around us, and I was standing on Half Blood Hill, next to my tree feeling like my ribs had had a large, heavy boot thrown at them.

I steadied myself and glanced around, taking in a view of the landscape. The large green valley spread for a couple of acres, dotted with statues of people in ancient Greek attire. A full rectangle of the weirdest buildings I could remember stood in the middle of a commons area, with a newer looking wing of cabins towards the southwest corner of the valley. Deep, dark forest extended for nearly a quarter of the valley, complete with a canoe lake with naiads weaving baskets underwater. Long Island Sound stretched lazily in the distance, and campers and satyrs alike ran around the strawberry fields.

I spotted Clarisse on guard duty, and hoped I wouldn't have to get run through with her new electric toothpick, Lamer the Second. Nico tapped my shoulder.

"I'm out," he said. Then he moved into the shadow of the pine and disappeared.

"Somebody sure has a way with words," I grumbled. I turned around and marched down the hill to the Zeus cabin, kicking open the door. "Yippee. Home disgusting home."

I dumped my few belongings on the dusty bunk I'd slept on only a couple times, five years ago, before I'd joined the Hunters. It was pushed into a tiny alcove out of Hippie Zeus's sight, where a bronze brazier had once stood. Everything was exactly as I'd left it, with the dusty chip bags under the bunk, an extra pair of boots lying around somewhere, and the faded pictures taped to the wall.

I took a closer look at the photos, a wave of nostalgia washing over me. I fingered the picture with me, Luke, and Annabeth all laughing, and at the one where Luke was pointing down an alley like, '_Let's gut the evil things we find down there! Ha!'_ I smiled regretfully, then moved away and started cleaning up. It was too painful to linger in those memories.

Okay, so maybe I wasn't over him for _good_, but I was over him. End of story.

After I'd finished cleaning, and getting myself filthy in the process, I showered, then changed back into my old black clothes and felt a little more at home. "_Di immortales!_ I have to go see Chiron," I muttered under my breath. I wondered how everyone would react to my being here again . . . Suddenly an excited shriek sounded across the green.

"Thalia! Why didn't you tell me you were here? If I'd known, I'd have prepared something! So, where're the rest of the Hunters?" Annabeth ratted off excitedly, pulling me towards the Big House, assuming that was where I was headed. "Where've you been? Artemis didn't give us any heads up. Is there an urgent kind of disaster that might risk the future of the Western civilization?" After that, Annabeth didn't take a breath until we were up the porch steps.

"So, Annabeth. How's the thing with Percy going?" I inquired innocently with an expression that was most definitely not innocent.

Annabeth immediately blushed a deep shade of pink, and stuttered incoherently, "Uh, um . . . fine? He's practicing his attempts not to shoot his fellow campers down at the archery range. Plus, he's been banned from Capture the Flag because of his invulnerable thing, and we're playing tonight." Talk about a change of subject.

"Great, kiddo. I'm taking you want to come see Chiron and Dionysus with me?" Annabeth shrugged.

The scene I walked into on wasn't surprising: the wine god griping and groaning about Diet Coke as well as losing the pinochle game, Chiron resignedly shuffling his cards, and two satyrs cowering and trembling in fear of the god, one of who was eating his ace. I recognized the one not gulping down his deck as Grover, who hadn't noticed me yet.

"Ah, there's nothing like family." I loudly announced my presence to the room, which was suicidal in itself, but I wasn't in the mood to care. Annabeth hissed nervously and elbowed me in the ribs.

Dionysus finally looked up with his bloodshot eyes, but immediately turned his attention to his deck as Grover bid. Then Grover jumped when he recognized my voice, yelped, and scrambled out of his seat, trying to greet me and keep an eye on his cards at the same time. Chiron turned around, a friendly look in his deep brown eyes as he trotted towards me with a smile. He opened his mouth, but was cut off by Mr. D.

"Ah, Tiffany Gilbert, another little brat for me to look after. Well, I suppose I must welcome you. Hello, insolent half-blood. Now excuse me, I must report this to Father. He will be so _absolutely_ pleased." The pudgy god stood up and snapped his fingers. The air folded around him, his image becoming fainter until he completely disappeared without a second glance. The sweet smell of fresh-pressed grapes lingered for a moment before drifting away.

Chiron laid a hand on my shoulder with an apologetic smile. He didn't seem too surprised to see me, but after training heroes for a couple thousand years, hey – nothing much can faze him. He wore a t-shirt saying, '_World's Best Centaur_' and had a quiver and bow slung over his shoulder. In centaur form, he towered over me, which had a major effect on his smile.

"Well, Thalia. What a surprise! Is there anything you need, perhaps?" Chiron asked. He seemed to see right away that something was up - unsurprisingly.

"Actually, yeah. Can we talk somewhere more private?" I gestured to the rec room, where the counselor meetings were held. "Annabeth, can you come?" I lead them into the room.

"Okay," I took a deep breath, "I'm not with the Hunters anymore, due to a little, uh, misunderstanding." Chiron just looked at me skeptically, while Annabeth gave me a scrutinizing look with her eyes narrowed into slits.

"Did you leave the Hunters?" I gave her a look. "Oh, no, of course not. Right. Well," Annabeth took a deep breath. "Welcome back, then." She smiled.

"Thanks. But I don't want to go into detail about this, so . . ." I trailed off. Now that I thought about it, there wasn't much I wanted to do at Camp Half-Blood. I'd already gotten all the training I needed, and most of it was self-taught. Camp was just a secondary home.

"So be ready to own that forest tonight," Annabeth winked and left.

After going over the technicalities with Chiron, I trudged out of the Big House and toward the arena to practice for Capture the Flag. I figured I'd be with Annabeth on the blue team, along with the Apollo, Demeter, Athena, Dionysus, and half the minor gods' cabins. Nico was on our side as well, because Annabeth had some dirt on him. It involved an incident with the girls' bathroom, toilet paper, and a tasered hamster. Perhaps I'll tell it to you another time.

I hoped nothing . . . extremely unusual would happen this time with Capture the Flag. The last time I'd played as a camper, the Oracle's mummy had decided to take a nighttime walk, and freaked Percy out so much he pretty much lost his interest in dousing me because of an argument which I shall not go into. The Oracle decided to spout a prophecy just when I was going to fry Percy into fish sticks, then sit her bum in the middle of the woods. I was glad our new Oracle was alive, healthy, and _human_.

Shaking my head, I looked around. The cabin looked so big with just one person, reminding me again about me. The _mistake_. I had to get out of that place; it had a cold, lonely feeling to it. It barely even felt like a cabin, more like a temple I was forced to stay in. Hippie Zeus glared down at me, as though warning me not to make any mistakes. What a load of bull.

"Hey, Clarisse! If you're not busy, I want to spar with you!" I pounded on the door of the Ares cabin, which was then opened by a disgruntled Clarisse. She took one look at me, decided I was a problem, and marched down toward the arena to beat me into pulp.

"Punk," she muttered, "You better be good, or else you'll really get it tonight. I _was_ busy, as a matter of fact."

"Sure you were," I murmured under my breath. Clarisse gave me the demigodly stink-eye.

A half hour later, we were still sparring without a break. A conch shell blew in the distance, signaling the beginning of dinner. Startled by the noise, I accidentally kicked a spray of gravel into Clarisse's face. She growled and swung Lamer down towards my head. I brought Aegis up, knocking away the spear. Its electricity didn't have the same effect on me as on other demigods; on the contrary, it seemed to build my strength. I jumped off the ground and tried to kick her. Instead, I ended up dangling by the ankle, because Clarisse had caught my foot at the last second.

"Drop me already. I don't want to hang here all day," I said, a little dizzy from the rush of blood to my head.

Clarisse seemed to contemplate this. "Fine, punk. You better watch your back tonight, or you're road kill." She dropped me headfirst onto the gravel and left.

I groaned and clambered to my feet. Breaking into a sprint, I ran to the pavilion just in time to sacrifice my food. I was none too happy about that, either. "For Zeus," I muttered as I dumped part of my dinner into the fire. I reloaded my plate and sat down at the Zeus table, by myself. I saw Percy and Nico, at their own tables.

Chiron stamped his hoof from the front table, signaling he was going to speak. An eager silence descended on the pavilion. Clearing his throat, Chiron began to speak.

"First, I would like to start with some announcements. We have another camper, Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus."

I frowned. My mother's surname again.

The campers started clapping enthusiastically; even the newest kids knew who I was. That raised my spirits a bit. Nico lifted his hand from the Hades table. I nodded a quick acknowledgement. Chiron pounded his hoof.

"Hush! Furthermore, we will be playing Capture the Flag in the woods tonight. Presently, the Athena table holds the laurels."

A round of cheering rose from the Athena table. Travis Stoll yelled, "You are so losing tonight!"

"We'll lose when Lima beans fly!" some first year camper yelled back.

That was when Travis demonstrated that lima beans _could_ fly, right past my face (mostly), and into the hair of the Athena campers. The atmosphere in the pavilion suddenly turned dark and apprehensive. Annabeth stomped up to Travis and slugged him in the face.

It took the combined efforts of me, Percy, and Malcolm to keep her from pounding Travis into a pulp.

Needless to say, Travis wasn't going to be playing Capture the Flag this time, for various reasons.

Neither was Annabeth, for that matter.

* * *

><p>The teams were assembled at the edge of the forest. Chiron, in full armor himself, was giving out instructions: "Please have no intentional maiming or killing. The flag must be in a visible place near the ground, with no more than two guards. The creek will be the borderline between the territories. I will be serving as judge and battlefield medic. Begin!"<p>

With a cheer from both teams, the camp split up and headed to opposite sides of the forest.

On the red team was the Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, and Hermes cabins, plus the other half of the minor gods. Ares had twenty kids now, which could pose a threat. Even though Clarisse was the only one with an electric spear on the other team, the standard bronze sword could still cause plenty of damage. The Aphrodite cabin I wasn't too worried about; they mostly sat out every activity and did their hair and gossiped.

Hephaestus might be a problem as well; there were about ten of them, and I shuddered to think what traps and tricks they might come up with. Hermes, well, they might be the masters of pick pocketing, but they were about as stealthy as walruses out of the water. I wasn't too bothered. Plus, Percy was sitting out because Annabeth wasn't going to be there. And he was banned anyway, because he could waltz in and out with the flag without once getting harmed, unless he tripped over his own feet.

We, the blue team, had set up our flag far from the creek, in a dirt clearing ringed by huge sycamores. It was nearly consumed by shadows, but the silvery gray banner was still easily spotted – if you craned your neck until it was nearly bent double. Will Solace and one of his brothers were guarding it, well armed with arrows that screamed – courtesy of Apollo. The rest of the campers were simply going to ward off the red team while Nico and I snuck around, caused a diversion, stole the flag, and won. Annabeth had already had everything planned out before I'd arrived, but she hadn't altered her plan that much to accommodate me, even though she knew I preferred the charge-and-knock-everybody-down way. She'd even given me her cap to make sure I didn't do stupid stuff, because "you are so similar to Percy and since I can't play you have to win for me."

We were about to do just that, and kick some armored butt along the way. Neither Nico nor I were wearing armor, since our standard black clothing blended in with the night. Bronze was slow anyway, especially for sneaking through a forest, and we both had more inconspicuous forms of protection. But I bet he wouldn't look as ridiculous in his armor now than he did at his first game, when I was at camp.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Nico hissed. "If we cross the water directly, they'll know we're in their territory. They have guards stationed there."

"I know that! What do you suggest we do, then?" I muttered. In response, Nico pulled me toward him – _again –_ with one hand. A feeling of being squashed into an aluminum can forced the air out of my lungs for the second time that day. Suddenly, I was standing at the shadowy base of an oak, a good twenty yards from the stream, which would've taken us three seconds to get to by running. "Would it have killed you to warn me?" I whispered furiously in Nico's ear.

"Shush!"

Nico and I sprinted toward the area where Annabeth told us they would probably set up. After about a mile, we were still running.

Stopping for a moment, I picked up a rock and threw it off to the side. By the sound of the explosion, it had hit one of the traps Hephaestus had set up. I smiled.

Whispering for Nico to stay behind me, I donned the cap and crept around to the least protected part – the back. And if somebody did the impossible and noticed me there, I always had my "daughter of Zeus" tricks. Piece of cake.

The second my hands closed around the base of the flag, a trap of some sort sprang out of the ground and knocked me into the dirt and the cap off my head.

Through the mass of campers came the fearsome Clarisse herself, twirling her electric spear around like a trophy. "Didn't think it quite through, punk," she sneered, swaggering into the clearing. The gorgon's face didn't have a large impact on her, probably because she'd already fought against it earlier today, but also probably because she was already used to seeing it in the mirror. Purposely kicking dust into my face, Clarisse reached out an arm to yank the flag back. Keeping my hold, I closed my eyes.

Volts of electricity gathered in my hand. Using up most of my energy in the process, I drew tendrils of red lightning out Lamer into the ball I was holding. Lamer started dimming, its red electricity seeping away into the compressed mass in my hand. A dull pain throbbed at the bottom of my rib cage as I forced the now purple volts into a crackling ball the size of a marble. When I could barely stand the pressure, I glanced up and smiled at Clarisse. Then I threw the ball at her feet. I'd barely caught my breath when –

"What in the name of – AARGH!" A crater was blasted open in the small space between the flag and Clarisse's minions. Wisps of smoke drifted up from the pit from the smoldering armor of the campers. The force of the blast chucked me backwards, right into Nico. We tumbled demigod-over-demigod down the hill, the flag still clutched in my hand. I smelled something burning, which I later realized came from me. The armory was going to have a few less sets of breastplates less than it started out with tonight. Nico made a muffled noise, and I realized my boot was in his mouth. Oops.

"Would you get off me?" Nico grumbled, dusting himself off.

I shouted a friendly goodbye as Nico shadow traveled us away to our base.

We materialized straight in pandemonium. Campers upon campers were sparring fiercely everywhere, and Will Solace was nocking his last two screaming arrows. I saw Travis Stoll sneaking back to our flag, near where Nico and I were standing. He had somehow weaseled his way back into the game, probably without Chiron's knowing. Nico snapped his fingers, and the skeleton of a snake erupted from the dirt and wrapped around his legs. He looked way too pale for his own good now.

"You were right, Stoll. You are so losing tonight," I waved the flag in his face. His expression was all worth it.

"Shut up and listen! We got the flag!" Nico shouted, seemingly out of nowhere. Silence fell on the clearing, with most of the demigods looking for the flag.

When we stepped out of the shadows, the Ares flag shimmered and turned blue, emblazoned with a lightning bolt in the middle. However, the burns it got from my shocker weren't mended. Either Chiron was going to stitch it back together, or he would need to magic a new flag out of. . . somewhere.

"We got the fla-ag! We got the fla-ag! We got the fla-ag!" Will Solace started the chant, and it was taken up by the blue team. They made Nico and I let them carry us until I forced them into putting me down, and they kept up the cheering until we reached the campfire.

"Hey. . . why does the flag have singed edges? And middles? And many other various places of surface area? And why is my cap in the same state?" Annabeth greeted me at the fire. I smiled.

"Long story. I'm just about worn out. Nectar, please?" I sighed, taking a small sip from the bottle. It tasted of hot chocolate. "You know, you missed a good show tonight."

"Not really. Percy took me Pegasus riding on Blackjack and we saw the whole thing from the air. Not as good as being in the game, but that was some explosion down there." Annabeth smirked.

"Mmm . . . yeah. Wait, you saw all that? Cheater. You're supposed to be _not_ seeing it. It's punishment." I whacked her arm playfully, and she grinned. It was good to be with her again.

* * *

><p>I don't know how I got myself into my cabin, or my bed, but I do remember sinking into a deep, dreamless sleep. It was disturbed greatly by a <em>thunk <em>against the cabin door, which was loud enough to wake me from my sleeping.

I also remember feeling kind of sorry for whoever dared to wake me up in the middle of the night.

"What do you want . . . who in the name of Zeus are you?" I blinked, trying to get a sense of what was going on.

"What am I doing here?" The prospect of a groggy murderer with amnesia at my cabin door in the middle of the night woke me up enough to slap them across the face.

"OW!" A guy, definitely. I squinted into the half-light from the stars and realized it was Nico.

"What are you doing here? It's the middle of the night!"

"I, uh, don't know?"

"You know what? Never mind. Just go back to your cabin and pretend this never happened."

"I can't."

"Why?"

"I'm too tired. I -"

"Isn't that _why_ you should go back to your cabin?"

"Stop interrupting already!" I stepped back to avoid getting hit by his agitated hand movements. "But I'm exhausted from shadow traveling us before, thanks _so_ much for that by the way, and you know how the harpies are on extra alert because everybody's 'celebrating' after capture the flag."

"Actually, I didn't know that, but whatever. Go to Percy's cabin."

"He and Annabeth are having one of their _nights -"_

"That's a mental image I didn't need."

"- so would you, uh, pleaselemmestay?" Nico muttered the last part as quickly as possible. I groaned.

"Floor or supply closet, you can pick. And I keep the windows open at night."

"I feel so loved."

"Shut up."

"Will do."

**Yeah, I know Annabeth wouldn't randomly throw a punch like that, but it was for the purpose of the story, which, by the way, I don't know your opinion on. Hint hint?**


	2. Many Things Disturb Me

I woke the next morning to the sound of thunder, and was confused for a moment. It hardly ever stormed around the Hunters' camps; Artemis usually bent the weather to her will to make sure her handmaidens weren't soaked to the bone during a storm. Then I remembered where I was. Cabin One was always thundering. I looked up at the ceiling of little mosaic tiles. This morning, the tiles were black and gray like storm clouds, with the occasional flash of jagged gold tiles like lightning. I looked around.

Nico was already gone, which saved us both a lot of awkwardness. I dragged myself out of bed and got ready for a couple of hours before breakfast. Donning a hoodie under my leather jacket, I slipped silently out of the cabin.

For a couple minutes I contemplated where to go while standing in the shadow of the cabin. I didn't particularly want to go back to Half Blood Hill; it just held too many memories. A place to watch the sunrise wasn't out of question, so I headed to the beach – stopping only for a detour to the Hermes cabin to snag some cans of Pepsi. Sugar and caffiene always appealed to me.

Settling on a rock, I popped open the lid of a soda and sipped, watching the rosy gold spread across the sky and sea. Finally, some peace and quiet. I sat there for a while, watching the stars fade one by one. Then I heard soft footsteps crunching the sand behind me.

"Can't sleep either?" inquired a familiar voice. I heard the popping of a Coke can without turning my head, and a messy black head came into my line of vision.

"What is this, Disturb Early Risers Day?" Percy lightly whacked me on the arm. I snapped my fingers without really focusing, and a single crackling spark drifted close enough to his face that he had to go cross-eyed looking at it.

"I don't know why everybody comes to the beach at ungodly hours. First me, then Annabeth, and now you too. I think the camp is trying to tear apart the last shreds of my peace," Percy said. I snorted.

"Maybe that's because it's true. You're so famous, the great hero of Olympus, invulnerable son of Poseidon, and, of course, boyfriend of Annabeth Chase, the designer of Olympus, and people absolutely _have_ to come here to make you show off your skills by creating a problem you _have_ to solve. Again."

". . . Was that a rant?" I sipped my Pepsi. Percy grinned, and the waves washed up to soak my boots. I snatched my feet up and scooted backwards on the rock.

"Well, I need something to vent my feelings on, and your invulnerable and everything, so. . ." I waved a hand distractedly to go with what I was saying, and the spark that had been hanging in front of Percy's face exploded – not causing him any real harm, because I was only vaguely thinking about what I was doing. "Oops."

"What, no sorry?"

"Nope." A stretch of silence followed, during which I stared off into space and did nothing. Percy shifted uncomfortably next to me. Then he cleared his throat.

"I had a dream last night," Percy confessed. I turned to face him, sitting cross-legged.

"What was it about?" He looked troubled.

"I was in a forest with a cliff, and there were warriors – only warriors in the city next to the cliff. And the weirdest thing was that all the people were girls. I couldn't find a single guy. And there was this storm overhead – just gray and black sky with the wind ripping branches off the trees. Their leader, another girl, she ordered them to build warships and leave the island. Then it went to a different dream.

"I saw this fancy room, somewhere high up. There was a girl that looked thirteen in a strange dress that kind of shimmered between silver, gray and black, and she was talking to another girl dressed all white -" Percy stopped, frowning. "Do you think it's weird that I keep dreaming about girls?"

I laughed. "Only you would think of something like that. Honestly, I have no idea. But keep going with the dream." Percy nodded, still frowning.

"Okay. So the other girl was lying on the couch, and she kept laughing creepily. It was, well, creepy. And then she said, 'Myn – mynem' – dang, I can't say her name right. So the white girl said, 'My-no-mo-seen, the plan is going perfectly. And with our Olympian sister's meddling, the three jewels of that ridiculous camp will be in our clutches even more easily. My fool of a husband couldn't see that, but I am not so daft. Besides, once they're out of the borders, our little fighters will handle them.' And then she gave me this really evil stink-eye, even better than Mr. D can do it, and I woke up."

Percy looked at me. I scowled. I didn't like what his dream told me, but it was a demigod dream. It couldn't be ignored. I slid down into the sand and rubbed my eyes.

The Fates hated me. That was the only explanation. I got three years of peace, and now I was back in all the turmoil of the aging world. And to top it off, some other problem comes along to add to the chaos. I sighed.

"Percy, I don't think you mean 'My-no-mo-seen.' And as much as I'd like to do something about this," I got up from my uncomfortable rock, "there's really not much we can do at all. So I am going to try and enjoy my life before it's destroyed again. You in?"

Percy looked put out, but said, "Yeah, you're right. See you around."

"Same."

Taking my empty can, I started walking to the dining pavilion Percy just behind.

* * *

><p>The rest of the week passed without incident. I became well-known at camp, but not all in a good way. Murmurs and whispers trailed me everywhere. I saw the Aphrodite cabin in groups of threes and fours, discussing in hushed voices and pointing fingers. It hardly took a genius to know what they were talking about. The Stoll brothers weren't helping, taking the liberty of parading me around like a celebrity: "Make way, make way, the princess in coming through!" They put an end to it when I shocked off some of their "chick magnet hair." At first a few guys from the Apollo and Aphrodite cabins tried to get in my personal space, until they got a nasty message saying I wanted to be alone.<p>

Rumors were thick about why I was at camp by myself. They started off already outrageously unreasonable, like "A hellhound attacked Thalia but she couldn't kill it so Artemis kicked her out because she sucked," and snowballing into "The Hunters went to Las Vegas, got drunk, and Thalia kissed a guy and fell in love and blabbed to Artemis and quit the Hunt."

I wanted to kill the person that made up the last one. No, scratch that, I wanted to chop them up into lots of little pieces and sacrifice the little pieces of them left to their godly parent.

To make sure I didn't really do that, I vented my feelings in the arena. Within three days, I'd beat every fighter in the cabins of Athena, Ares, Hephaestus, and Hermes. Only Percy really even gave me a challenge when I was mad, and soon he was the only person willing to fight me at all.

I noticed that Nico wasn't at camp during that week. Annabeth had once told me that Nico showed up sometimes, but spent most of his time away from camp. Then one morning I headed down to the arena to brush up on my sword fighting, even though I usually didn't use a sword. I walked through the doors and couldn't go farther than three more feet, because of a very large wall of black fur. I heard a sound suspiciously like a giant squeaky toy being disemboweled before I was bowled over by the very large wall of black fur.

"What the – aargh!" I pulled out the bronze sword I'd brought and was about to lop off the hellhound's nose when I was licked. In the face. By a huge tongue with a lot of dog spit. I heard laughing in the distance, getting closer.

"Sorry, Thalia. Mrs. O'Leary doesn't take kindly to people with sharp objects behind her," a smug voice announced. The chuckling grew louder. I grumbled and scooted away from the hellhound, then turned around, wiping my face.

"Her defense is licking people to death by drowning them in her saliva?" I asked Nico. The son of Hades walked up to the monster and rubbed her head, which was really as high as he could reach.

Nico nodded his head yes. "Even Percy isn't immune to dog spit. This is his dog, by the way. I look after her sometimes. So you're here to spar, or what?" he asked, turning to me. This wasn't as awkward as I'd first imagined.

I shrugged. "It's just as well that you showed up, because everyone but Percy's afraid of fighting me."

"You'll get what you ask for." In less than a second, Nico had drawn his short black sword and had gotten into a fighting stance. I flipped out my spear, dropped the bronze sword, and let Aegis stay on my wrist. As soon as I'd crouched down, Nico advanced with an experimental swipe. I blocked it easily.

Nico's style seemed to be mostly offense, not much defense. He drove me back around Mrs. O'Leary, until I was almost pressed up against the wall. Neither of us had broken a sweat yet. I hopped onto the first row of the stone bleachers, switching off of defense. I started stabbing downwards, forcing Nico to duck and dodge. Then he jumped onto the bench next to me. He targeted my feet and legs, pressing me up the rows of seats. I started to get worried.

I realized that Nico was trying to get me up higher, though if he knew I hated heights, he didn't let it on. I knew the outer wall of the arena was twenty feet tall, and I hated jumping down high places. If I backed down, I'd have to hold him off while climbing down backwards, which might result in me tripping and stabbing myself in the foot or something _really_ heroic like that. But Nico kept up his offense, and I knew my best choice was the wall. So I complied, even though when we neared the edge I began hyperventilating.

My reflexes opened up as I started panicking. I saw where his attacks were coming in, where he would step next. We were standing on the wall, on one side with the slope of hard stone seats, and on the other the twenty foot drop. I noticed people trailing into the arena and starting their own battles until they noticed the two black-clad people circling around the top bench, almost locked in a precarious dance. I smirked. Surprise flashed across in Nico's eyes for a moment, and I pointed down. He looked, and I slashed my spear. He leaned backwards.

Off balance, Nico swayed dangerously and finally slipped over the side – the straight wall side. I knew a fall like that would twist or sprain his ankle if he landed on his feet. Out of instinct, I lunged forward and grabbed his wrist. Nico grimaced, sweat trailing down his face, but oddly calm. I, on the other hand, was freaking out.

I gasped for breath. Dangling like that, Nico was about ten feet off the ground. He kicked off the wall, twisted in midair, and landed in a crouch. Startled by the sudden lack of weight, I lost my grip and started falling.

My mind went blank, and instinct took over. With panicking whiteness in my head, I pushed off the rough stone with my hands, did a flip, and landed hard on the grass, almost kicking Nico in the head. He was already in a starting position, slightly crouching. I put my hands on my knees and breathed hard. I stood up and looked at Nico. I'd never noticed before how long his hair was. I could barely see his eyes under his bangs.

"Not bad," he said. I nodded. "I never knew how much you hated climbing walls." I glared at him.

"For that, you are going to get it," I said, scowling.

Nico's eyebrows drew together. "Get what?"

In response, I crouched, swung out a leg, and tried to trip him. He jumped up and struck at my shoulder. I ducked under it and launched into a flip over his head. We traded a couple of karate-esque moves.

"This," I said, as my spear reappeared in my hand. I felt more at ease instantly. I started swiping at Nico. He kept having to dodge it, but after a couple seconds he reached for his other hand. I just noticed the glint of black and silver on his finger before he was holding his dull iron sword once again. I cursed.

"Now we're back at square one," Nico said, smirking in a satisfactory way. I started pressing him harder than I had before, forcing him into a mix of defense and offense. He growled in an almost feral way, striking back with more strength behind each blow. Now we were fighting each other as hard as we could. We worked our way around the round arena unconciously until we were standing in front of the gates once again.

My muscles were aching, but I ignored them. Getting an idea, I turned tail and ran into the arena. Thankfully, Mrs. O'Leary had vacated her earlier spot, but left behind quite a puddle. As I'd expected, Nico followed.

More than half the camp was packing the stands, many crowded around the edges near the wall where Nico and I had been fighting earlier. In the background I could hear them, talking and arguing. I worked my way toward Mrs. O'Leary's present. I kept up my offense hard, wiring Nico up. Then I feinted toward the right, and Nico stepped forward to block it. Unfortunately for him and just luckily for me, he stepped in the very wet spot. Worn shoe soles could be pretty slippery (I knew from personal experience), and Nico slid forward – right onto my boot. He tripped and landed hard on both hands, dropping his sword.

I heard the campers' talking get louder, and a bit of laughter. All the other sparring pairs had stopped to watch. I planted my boot on Nico's chest, silently declaring myself victor. What I didn't expect was for him to reach up, grab me, and pull me down next to him, pinning down my wrists. I snarled and knocked him over just as he was getting up, leaving my spear behind. A whistle cut through the arena. I noticed my ears felt as though they were burning.

Unexpectedly continuing the fight, Nico shoved me over, half smirking, half scowling. It was a strange expression. Now he was on top of me. I thrusted my knee into his stomach, pushing him onto his back again. I saw my spear on the ground next to me, and picked it up and held it at his throat.

"I win," I said, pulling Nico to his feet. He nodded, and accepted his defeat graciously.

We shook hands. I pulled away quickly, glared at the packed stands, and walked out of the arena, feeling slightly better than I had before.

* * *

><p>There was a good part and a bad part to the dream. Of course, the good part was only good compared to the nightmare half.<p>

When you think nightmare, you think black shadows and clawed monsters, things with venomous fangs mauling you in the darkness. My nightmare was the polar opposite of that.

I was standing in a shadowed hallway with my back to the wall, next to an elaborate door looking into a room I couldn't see clearly. Smoky gray light glowed from inside the room. Hard as I tried, I couldn't move anything except turn my neck. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a pair of dainty white feet and the edge of a black and silver gown.

The owner of the feet spoke. "Stupid useless things." The voice was whispery and persuasive, and I felt inclined to agree that the umbrella was indeed a stupid useless thing.

A teenage girl sauntered past me into the room, wearing white everything. White pants, white shirt, sneakers, bracelets, anything that was wearable, she had it and it was white. Even her face had so little color it was deathly. It made her black eyes and blood red lips come as a shock. The girl looked like a vampire marshmallow gone ninja.

As she passed me, her eye twitched, but she gave no other signs of seeing me there.

"You got the umbrella again, didn't you?" Marshmallow Ninja's voice was hollow. It echoed off the walls, though it was in a lavishly furnished building. My eyes began hurting from how much I was straining to look into the room.

"If you must know," Dainty Foot retorted, "Yes. I did. The stupid cheerleaders know I hate them. I think they do it on purpose." Yes, I thought drowsily. They do it on purpose.

"Our guest is here, yes?" Marshmallow Ninja asked.

The feet disappeared from my line of vision. "Darling, darling –"

"Don't call me that."

"I am no fool. Our 'guest' is here with us now."

Teal light flashed from inside the room, and a strip of slimy seaweed flew past me and splattered against the far wall. It was followed by a cry of frustration and icy laughter.

"Why do you insist on a seaweed belt? It's stupid."

The new arrival interrupted, "Shut up, Minnie. Why are you wearing that stupid dress anyways? It's hardly time for a gala."

"I, unlike some, Tethys, enjoy looking sophisticated," replied Dainty-Foot-Minnie. "At least it's quieter here. The rushing water was so annoying. Much too harsh."

A disdainful sniff sounded from the newcomer. "Only you. I found it quite pleasing. Anything to tilt everyone else off balance. But the ocean here . . ." I could almost hear the wicked smile form in the silence of the pause. "I can say that it's much more my style."

"Enough!" Marshmallow Ninja snapped, her pacing bringing her in and out of my sight. "This is our base, and it will stay our base. It has, of course, the added advantage of hearing our _dear_ brother Atlas -" she said his name the same way she'd say _mangy old boots_ or _Dionysus's dirty laundry_. "- scream insults at the gods. It makes for good entertainment." As if on cue, an echoing shout drifted down from Mount Tam in the distance. "Now, for the little gems. The amoeba already knows."

"Taken care of last week," yawned the one that had come in last. I guessed it was a girl. At least, she sounded like one. What was her name again? It began with a T . . .

Marshmallow Ninja nodded. "Minnie? Our, ah, _Olympian sister's_ job?" She twisted the words into a profanity.

Minnie examined her lead-colored fingernails. "What can I say? I'm _very_ persuasive."

"Excellent. Now, a message to our nephew."

"Done."

Ninja smiled again, showing a pair of abnormally long incisors. "Minnie, if you would do the honors."

A gray blur whipped from inside the room to form a girl leaning casually out of the doorway, wearing a shimmery gray dress. She stared straight at me, and I froze, even by dream standards.

Her eyes were as dull as pencil lead. She chuckled, and said, "Well, little girl? Go on . . . you're done . . ." I felt my senses slowly slipping away. The dream changed.

This time, I stood in the shadowy corners of Mount Olympus's throne room. Three of the thrones were occupied: Zeus sat straight and stiff in his platinum chair, Aphrodite reclined in her seat, and Artemis sat cross-legged on her throne, sharpening an arrow with a piece of flint. All three Olympians glared at each other. They must've been concentrating extremely hard, because not one of them gave any impression they knew I was here. Finally, Zeus spoke.

"Aphrodite."

I expected the goddess to shrink back in her throne at Zeus's tone. Instead, she assumed the stubborn pouty face of a kid that wasn't allowed to go to a party, and crossed her arms defiantly.

"I told you, that voice told me to go do it!" she cried, throwing her hands up. Artemis sniffed.

"I've lost one of the best lieutenants I've ever had, and it's all thanks to you that she's gone!" She snapped. Then she paused. "A voice told you?"

Aphrodite nodded, eyes wide and innocent. "It told me it was time to go get your lieutenant, because it was really really important. And then it said more reasons why. It made lots of sense!" The love goddess pouted again.

_It made lots of sense._ The words rocketed around in my head, like a fire alarm gone crazy, but I couldn't put it together.

Artemis mused. "That sounds like what I heard, when I dismissed Thalia. It whispered for me to be ruthless." _Ruthless. Ruthless. Ruthless. _The word repeated in my head._ It made lots of sense. Ruthless._

It almost clicked. Then I woke up to somebody crashing into my cabin door, and I forgot.


	3. My Mother Predicts My Death

Now, normally, when a person wakes up, they like to wake from a nice long deep sleep undisturbed by nightmares and other people. They would probably like to get up, eat breakfast, and start off the day like the jolly person they are supposed to be.

Because I am not a nice normal person, I didn't wake up the nice normal way.

Instead, I landed hard on my shoulder after falling off my bunk, startled by the crash made by somebody running into my door. Rubbing my shoulder resentfully, I opened the door, fully intending to give whoever it was a piece of my mind. I was hoping it was somebody I could yell at easily.

Nobody was there.

I glanced around, squinting into the darkness of the way-too-early morning, and caught sight of a figure flitting between the cabins, blending into the shadows. It was almost impossible to see, and I only saw it when it ran through a grayish patch of light, outlining the figure for a brief second.

I closed the door and crawled back into bed, emptying my mind of everything – the nightmare, the camp gossip, the suspicious person running around at an ungodly hour, the crash that woke me up. I fell asleep for a fitful, but thankfully undisturbed, two hours.

* * *

><p>"Have you noticed Nico's been acting weird lately?" Annabeth asked me casually during Ancient Greek later that day. I was preoccupied with figuring out how to translate "Paris, prince of Troy, snuck out in the middle of the night with the beautiful queen Helen," into English. So far I had "Paris, pretty boy, ran away in the middle of a Hydra," which somehow I didn't think was right.<p>

"Hm? Nico? What about him?" I mumbled, giving the Iliad a useless glare. It mocked me with its angular Greek writing that looked like piles of sticks in my head. I knew better than to cuss at it, though. The last time I did that, Annabeth made me write "I must not out-cuss Shakespeare" in Greek, because she was forcing me to read _A Midsummer Night's Dream. _It was a romance play- one of the things I was not fond of.

"He's been acting kind of jumpy, and afraid. Uh, Thalia, it's 'prince of Troy,' not 'pretty boy.'" Annabeth pointed at the line.

I frowned. "I knew that."

"Yeah. So do you have any idea why? It started something like a week ago, after you guys had your famous sword fight."

"I meant I knew the translation. Hey, wasn't Paris a mortal obsessed with his mirror?"

"That's kind of the whole point of him being stupid enough to judge a contest between three goddesses that can fry him into ashes. Now, don't change the subject."

"I knew that, too."

A smile tugged at Annabeth's lips. "Okay, fine. I've also noticed," she paused, "that Nico's been acting differently ever since you got here. Any idea why?"

I looked at her, my eyes wide and innocent. "Nope. He looks fine to me."

"That's because you didn't know how he was before you got here. It's simple logic. You should talk to him."

Now I openly gaped. "Why should I talk to him? It's not my problem."

"Okay, okay, do what you want. Anyway, after 'prince of Troy' is 'snuck out in the middle of the night'; Paris didn't run away eaten by a Hydra."

"Man, I hate Ancient Greek."

"Touché."

I started keeping tabs on Nico for the next couple of days. I realized Annabeth was right; Nico was skittish and fickle. He kept shooting me futile looks, and often had an expression on his face like he wanted to talk to me, but was afraid to. Finally my patience ran out.

That night at dinner, Nico almost purposely winded up next to me to sacrifice his food. He opened his mouth, but before he could close it and walk away, I cut him off.

"Go back to your table," I hissed, trying not to move my mouth. He obeyed, the way people generally do when I order something. He muttered something to his dad to go with his barbecue, and slid inconspicuously back to his table in the shadows.

"For Zeus," I muttered, dropping a thick, crispy slice of buttered bread into the fire. The smoke rising from it momentarily turned into a faint breeze, heavy with the metallic scent of ozone – like the warning before a thunderstorm.

That probably meant my risky rule-breaking plan was going to fail.

Sitting back at my table, I nibbled on a slice of pizza, waiting for Mr. D to leave. My plan would fail even worse if I was strangled by magical grapevines. That would suck. Chiron was talking to Will Solace from the Apollo cabin. Fidgeting, I lingered, not really eating, until Dionysus finally left. I grabbed my pizza and walked over to the Hades table, not bothering to hide my actions.

Boy, this was going to set off a whole explosion of rumors.

Nico looked up from his dinner, and nearly choked on his water. After regaining the ability to breathe, he kind of stared at me as I slid into the seat opposite him.

I had a sudden image of flipping my hair and saying, "'Sup," like Paris probably would do to Helen. Sometimes ADHD was entertaining. A smile quirked my lip, but then it faded.

"Look, it's only a matter of time until Chiron kicks me back to my table, so whatever you have to say, make it quick," I said irritably, glancing over my shoulder. I saw people whispering at their tables, but the general chit-chat covered it up.

Nico sipped his water, taking his sweet time. "Who says I have something to say to you?"

I glowered at him. "You've been stalking me for the past week!"

Nico nodded sagely. "I see."

"Would you hurry up?" I growled in frustration.

"It's Hades."

"What about Hades?"

"He gave me a message about the rock. I'm not sure which rock- they're hardly rare- but it's obviously an important rock."

The piece of pizza in my hand was undoubtedly on its merry way to meet the floor.

"I had a feeling I should tell you," Nico shrugged, looking under the table at the floor's new friend, my formerly edible pizza.

"So you've been acting all skittish because you wanted to tell me your dad told you about a rock."

The son of Hades nodded. "That just about sums it up."

I groaned. "Bye."

Nico shrugged again and went back to eating his barbecue.

* * *

><p>I went through my activities as usual for the rest of the week. I'd learned how to hide my feelings well because of my mother always telling me to be the leader, and the leader couldn't show fear. It came naturally to me, after twenty or so years, to pretend to be normal and that nothing was wrong. In truth, I was unnerved.<p>

The dream kept coming back in little snatches. The surreal persuading voice muddled my thoughts, and I kept waking up early in the morning with the sheets tangled around me, whipping my head from side to side in a nervous sweat. It threw me so much that I kept jumping at little noises, not sure what was coming next.

I hated not knowing things, especially the future. If I don't know, I can't control it. Which never sat well with me, even though I knew that learning the future and being tempted to change it would most likely lead to a big spaghetti-like bowl of nothing good.

There was someone that I could ask, though, someone who spoke guessing games that messed with your mind. I knew going to the Oracle of Delphi was risky; everyone, even me, had heard stories about campers that died from fear of the visions, and others that had been driven insane.

I figured insane was the place I was going if I didn't ask anyways, what with all the confusion and circles of thoughts, and people treating me like a gossip topic. I went to the Big House, to the room where Rachel Dare stayed.

I quietly entered the house, avoiding the hospital wing, even though it was empty. I hated sickness even more than not knowing things; it made you weak. Climbing up the stairs, I got more anxious with each step. After what seemed like an eternity of stairs, hallways, and doors, I found the one with paint splatters around the edges. There was a plaque in the middle, also slightly smudged, that read:

R.E.D.

Oracle of Delphi

I wondered if Rachel had picked out the plaque, and why her initials spelled out 'red'. I knocked on the door lightly. After a couple seconds, a girl with pale skin and fiery red hair opened the door, wearing a 'Harvard Art Dept.' T-shirt and jeans with marker doodles scrawled on them. She had a paintbrush tucked over her ear, even though it was dripping paint. Rachel Elizabeth Dare, Oracle of Delphi.

"Hi," she said, wiping her hands on a cloth. "Come on in. You here for me, or the Oracle?"

I stepped in and looked around. Rachel's room was pretty big, with a small bed in the corner by the window, and an empty space with a three-legged stool in it. The rest of the room was taken up by easels with canvases, and paintings and sketches were hanging in every available space. There were drawings of the gods, monsters, and a couple of portraits. I recognized Percy on one of them.

Rachel gestured to the extra chair next to the stool. "Have a seat." I settled on it uncomfortably.

"Um," I started. Now that I was here, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. I'd really only witnessed one prophecy, the one where the mummified shell of the Oracle walked out into the woods and gave Zoë Nightshade her prophecy of doom. It didn't exactly boost my confidence, even though the current Oracle was much more alive than the last one.

"Thalia, right? I'm guessing you know who I am. So what's new?" Rachel sat cross-legged on her bed, the paintbrush still perched on her ear.

"Well, I'm kinda out of the Hunters, and there's been a lot of confusion going on with me at camp, and . . . I just really need some advice."

"And you thought maybe the Oracle could help you with it," she finished.

I shifted in my seat. "Yeah."

"Let me give Delphi a call . . . Oh, great, here -" Rachel doubled over like she was going to throw up. I dragged her over onto the stool.

Rachel's green eyes started glowing. She opened her mouth, and glowing green smoke flowed out, hissing like acid. Somehow, it was even creepier seeing a living person spout a prophecy than watching a corpse do it.

Rachel straightened on the stool, and when she spoke, it sounded like three raspy women speaking exactly in sync with each other. The voice was hard to describe; it didn't actually speak. Instead, it slithered into my head and coiled around my mind: _I am the spirit of Delphi, speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python. Approach, seeker, and ask._

I wanted to back away and say, _Never mind, wrong room, I'm outta here, bye._ But I sucked it up and took a deep breath.

"What do I have to do?"

The mist thickened in front of me, sculpting itself into the shape of a woman. Her face became more defined until I could see exactly who it was.

My mother.

I clenched my fist, digging my nails into my palm, even though I knew it was just mist. _She _was the reason I ran away. _She_ was why my childhood was so horrible. _She_ was the person I hated most in the world. And now she was probably tell me how I was going to die. How convenient.

She opened her mouth, and spoke in the raspy voice of the Oracle:

_You shall go west to the prison of the rock,_

_Face the queen of the broken clock,_

_All of the three shall be torn apart,_

_The shock and shadow through the heart,_

_The one to flee behind unjust,_

_Clouds the comer you cannot trust._

I stood in shock as the image dissolved, turning back into a smoky green python that slithered back into Rachel's mouth. Rachel unfroze, her eyes back to her normal green, and coughed.

"Man, I hate when the snake goes down my throat. So what did the Oracle say?" Rachel asked, getting up from the stool and settling back onto her bed. I collapsed on the chair.

"Thalia? Are you okay?" Rachel waved a hand in front of my face. "Snap out of it!"

I shook myself back. "Yeah, I – I'm okay. I – gotta go. Thanks, Rachel." Rachel nodded, picking up her paintbrush from where it had fallen on the floor and turning back to an unfinished painting. I slipped out the door and ran as fast as I could out of the house.

"Hey, Chiron," I said automatically when he cantered up to me from the archery field. Chiron smiled and dipped his head in greeting.

"Good afternoon, Thalia. May I have a word?"

"Sure." Chiron started walking in a random direction. I jogged to keep up.

"I understand that there have been . . . difficulties . . . regarding your reappearance at Camp Half-Blood. So young," he murmured, then looked back at me, not breaking stride. "How have you been coping?"

I furrowed my brow. "I've been doing fine. It's a lot of pressure, but I deal with it." I didn't bother elaborating.

Chiron nodded, stroking his beard. "Many heroes crack under such pressure. You, however, are not one of them." He smiled warmly at me. "But I must warn you to be careful. Do not act rashly, and if circumstances are forced upon you, heed the ancient laws. You must be careful." I looked at him, surprised. He sounded like he knew exactly what was going on. Then again, after teaching heroes for thousands of years, he was probably good at deductive reasoning.

I nodded, smiled, and made my exit. Chiron cantered away, off to do some activity director stuff. His words echoed in my mind.

_Heed the ancient laws . . ._

Well, if I was going to go on this stupid quest I'd gotten myself into, I might as well do it heeding the ancient laws, to spare myself a truckload of trouble. Which meant I had to find somebody very important.

* * *

><p>"Nico!" I grabbed his arm as I passed him in the common area.<p>

"Thalia!" Nico feigned excitement, but quickly dropped back into its usual moody glower. "What?"

"Oh, come on. Is it so wrong of me to talk to you?"

"Maybe." He scowled at the sun. Did his face ever change from that expression?

"Look, there's this thing that's been going on . . . Can you get out of camp whenever you want?"

Nico eyed me suspiciously. "Why do you want to know?"

I didn't get it. Why was he being so cold towards me? I couldn't remember doing anything to him.

"Because I need to get out of camp." I was openly hostile now. Well, if he was going to be a brat, I might as well be a brat back. I wasn't his counselor.

"Gee, that clears it up."

We had a brief staring contest, which we tied in. He changed the subject. "I've been thinking about my dad's message. He told me to beware the rock -"

I rolled my eyes. "Let's skip to the part where you figured something out."

Nico rolled his eyes back at me. "I'm going to the rock to get rid of whatever's over there."

"What?"

"Plus it gives me an excuse to get away from this infernal camp."

I made up my mind. "I'm going with you."

"No you're not."

"Yes I am. First of all, I have a pretty good idea where this rock is, and second of all, if I'm right, you'll die when the person at the rock snaps her fingers. And third, I got a prophecy about going to the rock. So shut it." I hadn't meant to tell him I visited the Oracle.

Oops.

Nico narrowed his eyes at me. "You went to the Oracle." Somehow, making it into a statement made it seem even more idiotic.

"Uh, yeah."

"And got a prophecy."

"Uh-huh."

"That was probably the stupidest thing you could've done."

"Thanks for the support."

"What did it say?"

I shifted my feet. I figured Nico was pretty much my only way out of the camp, so I recited the prophecy to him. He frowned, fiddled with his skull ring, and frowned again. Did the guy ever show _any_ emotion besides that?

"Come on," he said, grabbing my wrist with his ice-cold hand and dragging me across the common area.

I yanked my hand back. "Where are we going?"

Nico sighed, exasperated. "To get Percy." I understood immediately. We started towards the Poseidon cabin again, an uneasy silence stretching for the remainder of the way.

"So we have a quest nobody knows about except us?" Percy said, sitting on his (extremely messy) bunk. The Poseidon cabin was about as neat as the Zeus cabin, and I wasn't especially good at cleaning up. I could see a pair of running shorts flopping out from under Percy's bed. He had his Minotaur horn hanging on a hook on the wall, and miniature bronze hippocampi bobbed through the air, looking as though they were swimming through the watery green light. It was much homier than the Zeus cabin.

I nodded in answer to his question. "Us, and Rachel Dare." Nico stood by the door, leaning against it.

Percy said, "I'm not sure if I can go." Immediately Nico and I started protesting; if he didn't come, chances were that we were going to strangle each other before we made it out of the city. Percy held up his hands. "But maybe. I mean, we're leaving on a whim. We've got no clue where we're going, and, well, I've got Annabeth to think of. I can't leave with no explanation, and I can't tell her about this either." I looked at Nico, and he looked at me back, his face expressionless.

"I know where we're going," I said. Percy perked up. "Alcatraz." There was dead silence in the room.

"It's the first line of the prophecy," Nico spoke up. "_You shall go west to the prison of the rock._ Clear as mud." Sarcasm dripped from his words.

Percy looked amused. "Nico, why are you such a pessimist?"

"I'm not a pessimist. I'm a realist. It just comes across as pessimism," Nico said, somewhat indignantly. I snorted.

"Nah, you're a pessimist."

I said, "So? Are you coming with us?"

Percy hesitated, then hesitated some more. Finally, he said, "Okay. But where do we start?" Now it was my turn to hesitate.

Nico butted in. "How about your mom's place, Percy? We can't exactly go anywhere else outside camp. Well, _you_ can't." I ignored the jibe in his words. I'd only met Percy's mom once, but if it was good enough for Nico to suggest, it was good enough for me.

"But I need something to tell Annabeth. And Thalia, you'll have to come up with an excuse too; Chiron and Mr. D. won't let you go outside of camp, and especially not for an illegal, unknown quest," Percy said, getting up and pacing.

I nodded, "Yeah, I've got that mostly sorted out. Nico doesn't matter -"

"Hey! I'm your ticket out of here!"

"- he disappears once in a while anyways, but you can Iris-message Annabeth after we're at your mom's place. I just hope you've gotten better at lying, or else we could be completely busted. I'll tell Chiron . . ." I trailed off, wracking my brain for something that would work. "I'll tell Chiron that I don't like it here at camp, so I'm going to stay at your place for a couple of weeks. That'll work, right?" I asked Percy.

"Yeah, probably," he agreed. Then he slumped. "I wish I could tell Annabeth."

I knew telling Annabeth could be risky. I mean, she could easily tell Chiron, but on the other hand, she would be invaluable help. I remembered how stubborn she could be, and if we could work the right angle . . . I made up my mind.

"Tell Annabeth, then. But make sure she'll help us. You know how persistent she is; if she makes up her mind she'll never change it," I said. Percy brightened.

"When do we leave?" Nico asked.

I replied, "As soon as we pack."

Percy said, "Meet me back here when you guys are done." I murmured a yes.

I followed Nico out of Cabin 3. Then I walked back to my cabin, grabbed a worn black backpack with a lightning strike on it, and started shoving supplies into it: A bottle of nectar, a baggie of ambrosia, a couple drachma, extra clothes, a hairbrush, and toiletries. I stopped to look around the cabin to see if there was anything I forgot, and my eyes fell on the pictures taped by my bed.

After a moment's pause, I carefully pulled the one of Luke and Annabeth pointing down a dark alley and grinning off the wall and tucked it in a pocket of my backpack.

When I made my way back to the Poseidon cabin, Percy wasn't there. I waited impatiently for five minutes, before hearing footsteps. I looked up and found Nico instead of Percy.

"Do you have any idea where he is?" he asked irritably.

"Probably talking with Annabeth," I said irritably back. It seemed as though we could never get along. We waited for another ten minutes before Percy came running up to us, Annabeth at his side.

Annabeth started talking as soon as we were within clear earshot. "Look, I don't like the idea of you guys running off, but since the Oracle said so," Annabeth shot me a look, "you have to go. I'll make up something believable for Chiron, so you aren't thrown out when you get back. Camp ends in two weeks anyways, so it's not that much of a surprise if a couple campers take some early vacations. Since you've all been on quests before, you should know the stuff to bring, but just make sure you include -" At this point Annabeth started listing off all the things she thought we should bring, from money to food to extra socks. It seemed her memory was as good as ever.

I chuckled, and Percy laughed. Nico remained stoic as ever. "We get it, we get it. Thanks for everything, Wise Girl." He gave her a chaste kiss. I looked at the ground. Nico moved uncomfortably next to me.

"Um, guys, we should probably go. This is the best time for shadow-traveling," Nico interrupted. Annabeth nodded, her cheeks slightly pink. She hugged Percy one last time.

"Good luck," she said. "You're going to need it." Annabeth turned around and started walking back to her cabin.

We stood there for a moment. Then I said, "Nico, did you say shadow-traveling?"

Nico nodded. "It's the fastest way to get out of camp. Not to mention the only one I can use."

I swallowed, then gripped Nico's ice-cold hand with one hand, and clutched my backpack with the other. In less than a second, I had the feeling of my face peeling off as the shadows had swallowed us up.

This time, when we landed, I barely registered where I was before I slumped onto Percy's bed, trying to get my breath back. I didn't know why shadow traveling affected me so much, but I hated it whenever Nico made me do it.

Blinking, I made no attempt to get off Percy's bed and looked around instead. His room was dark and homey, with the walls painted a dark blue color. A couple posters of fish were hanging on the walls. There was one bed in the middle of the room, and a duffel bag was thrown haphazardly on the floor. I spotted a nightstand with a fish bowl with three goldfish in it. Behind me was a glass door going out to the fire escape, and in front of me was a regular one leading to the kitchen. Next to it was a door, probably for the bathroom.

Percy shook my shoulder. "Thalia! Thalia, are you okay?" I nodded, pushing myself off his bed.

"What now?"

Nico shrugged, looking a little tired. "I figured we'd spend the night here, leave tomorrow morning."

Percy and I murmured our consent. Then Percy led the way into his kitchen, where Mrs. Jackson was sitting at the kitchen table, laughing with a guy I assumed was Percy's step-dad, Paul Blofis. Mr. Blofis looked up first, his mouth dropping open at the sight of three teenagers in his house who obviously didn't come through the front door. Mrs. Jackson saw us next, her expression one of pleased surprise.

"Hi, Mrs. Jackson," I said as innocently as possible. "Do you mind if we spend the night?"


	4. I Become Dog Food

"So we already know we're going to Alcatraz because of the first line. Wait, are you sure it's Alcatraz?" Percy cringed.

We were sitting in a triangle on Percy's bed: him at the head, me a little way to the side, and Nico at the foot. We'd sort of explained the whole situation to Percy's mom and stepdad, and they agreed to let us stay. In fact, Mrs. Jackson was more than willing to give me the spare bedroom, saying it wasn't appropriate for me to have to bunk with two boys. I readily agreed with her.

"Yes, I'm sure. Its nickname is 'the rock', and with the word 'prison' in there, it's pretty much guaranteed to be Alcatraz Island," I replied.

Nico spoke up. "Line two: _Face the queen of the broken clock._ Do we know of any queens of broken clocks?" All of us shook our heads.

"Does it mean like a goddess?" Percy asked.

"I don't know," I said.

"There has to be a goddess of clocks. I mean, there's one for doorknobs!" Percy said, scratching his head. Nico slumped onto his side and rolled off the bed onto the bean bag chair in the corner.

"I want to die," he moaned. "Gah . . ."

"Isn't that ironic," I murmured. Nico glared at me from under his flopping bangs.

"I give up. Let's just sleep, and start again tomorrow morning," Percy complained. He flopped backwards onto his bed, throwing an arm over his eyes. I decided to follow their lead and went to the other bathroom to clean up, because I knew I wasn't going to be particularly hygienic for the next couple of days or weeks.

Dawn found me curled up in the spare bed, sleeping peacefully for what was probably the last time in my life.

"Morning, people!" Percy grinned at us brightly from the other side of the kitchen table. Nico was wolfing down his chocolate pancakes, completely ignoring the bowl of cereal he'd pushed to the other end of the table.

"Morning to you too, Percy. Now, how are we getting to Alcatraz?" I asked, biting my own pancake. Mrs. Jackson was the best cook in the world.

"I can't shadow travel; I've never been to Alcatraz," Nico mumbled from around his breakfast. I shook my head in agreement.

"And you'll get too worn out," Percy said. "Hey, how far is the biggest distance you've ever traveled?" Then he paused. "That didn't make sense to me. Okay, so where's the – no, what's the – I think I'm still asleep," Percy yawned, shaking his head.

I grinned. "I think you mean 'What's the furthest you've ever traveled,'" I said, looking between Percy and Nico. The son of Hades cracked a rare smile.

"China. But that was unintentional, and I passed out for a week and a half afterwards."

"Then how about the subway? Or a train?"

"Okay, I guess . . ."

"Sure. But aren't we going to potentially blow it up?"

"Blow up the subway?"

"It could happen."

"'Nico Di Angelo: World's Leading Optimist'."

Percy grinned at my remark. "I think it comes from being the son of the death god."

"Not death god," Nico corrected. "Ruler of the Underworld. Which makes me the Prince of the Underworld. You must call me Lord Nico down there."

"I thought you were the Ghost King," Percy said.

"Oh yeah, that too."

"Have you discovered modesty yet, Ghost King?" I asked, snickering.

"Maybe."

"The subway it is, since flying is obviously out of the question." All three of us gave a little shudder, though I tried to hide mine as best as I could. Nico didn't need to know anything about me and heights. It was bad enough that Percy did, but I could trust him to keep a secret.

"How did we even get so far off topic?"

"I think it comes from being dysfunctional, ADHD teenagers that just so happen to be more abnormal than the normal abnormal."

"Is there such thing as a normal abnormal?"

All three of us shrugged, and rose from the table. "Mom! We're leaving!" Percy called down the hall. He hastily scribbled a note saying he'd Iris message when he could, and the three of us trooped out into New York City.

* * *

><p>After sitting and doing nothing on the subway for three hours, I was hungry.<p>

I grabbed the worn black handle of my backpack, pulled it over, and unzipped it. Looking inside, the first thing I saw was a pair of curved, reflective black sunglasses. They looked extremely expensive and probably were the best quality invented yet.

They weren't my sunglasses. Mine were just the standard sporting ones with a translucent smoky gray rim, and had UV protection. They weren't reflective, and they certainly didn't cost as much as the ones in my backpack probably did.

Frowning, I shook the bag, listening for the crinkle of chip bags, but hearing none. I looked inside it again. The sunglasses had shifted out of sight, but I spotted a sleek black iPod in its place.

What the heck?

I didn't own an iPod; I'd never been able to afford one on the run, and having music blasting in your ears while hunting down monsters was neither successful nor practical. Ignoring how rude it was to look through people's stuff, I scrolled through the music on the iPod. Nearly all of it was songs about death, which was a huge clue in itself. I found a couple Green Day songs I liked in the favorites list.

Tossing the iPod back into the backpack, I dug around in it some more. It wasn't until I saw the black T-shirt that was obviously too large for me that I realized this wasn't my backpack.

I saw Nico looking at me out of the corner of my eye, his expression confused. He picked up the black backpack sitting on the seat next to him and unzipped it. His eyes widened, and his cheeks turned a little pink.

"Thalia," he began hesitantly, "You have my backpack." I looked at the bag I was holding again, and realized it wasn't as worn as mine. It was also a little heavier.

And yeah, it was Nico's backpack.

My ears turned hot, and I hurriedly tossed the bag across the aisle back to Nico. He threw mine over, and I looked at the first thing inside. Oh.

Now I knew why Nico was in such a rush to give it back.

"Percy," I said, "you mixed up our bags, didn't you?" Percy looked from me to Nico and back, looking nervous.

"Well, you were in the bathroom, and Nico was getting some money for the snack machine and both of your guys' backpacks look exactly the same, and – it's an easy mistake!" he yelped. I rolled my eyes, my ears still burning, and fished out the chips I was looking for. I shoved the backpack behind me and stared out the window for the next two hours, eating the chips I'd gone through so much trouble to get.

* * *

><p><em>Centaur. Centaur. Centaur kid. Centaur. Giant fox. Centaur – giant fox?<em> I squinted at the grassy scene outside my window, but anything I thought I saw had vanished. I went back to counting centaurs until the view was replaced by the tunnels of the subway.

We'd made our way out of New York, and were somewhere in Pennsylvania by midday. We'd switched trains a couple times to throw monsters off our scent, and crossed water for good measure.

"Attention passengers. We are arriving at our next stop in the city of Harrisburg. Please be careful when leaving the train. Thank you, and have a good day," the conductor droned over the speakers. I double checked my stuff was in place.

"I gotta go to the bathroom," Nico said, standing up and hefting his backpack. Percy and I stood up as well.

"Let's try not to blow up the capitol of Pennsylvania by going to the bathroom, okay?" I said, stepping off the train. The other two followed.

Leaning against the wall by the bathrooms, I waited impatiently. Percy fidgeted next to me. I scanned the people passing by, and noticed an old woman in a wrinkly green knitted sweater holding the leash of the biggest bloodhound I had ever seen, which was weird, because dogs weren't allowed in the station.

The lady looked at me with beady eyes, and I shuddered. The dog growled, but not a single other person noticed. It shook its head, and the chain link collar jingled almost menacingly. A cold shiver traveled down my spine.

"Come on, let's go," Percy broke into my thoughts. I gave myself a shake, and led the way out of the station into open air.

A low, dark gray bank of clouds was slowly but surely making its way across the city, turning the river next to it into a churning blue-gray sheet and sealing the inhabitants under a smothering layer of solid mist. It looked like Daddy dearest wasn't happy about something, and I had a sinking feeling that it had to do with me.

I started walking briskly towards the nearest bus stop, planning on getting onto the next one, despite the fact that demigods and buses didn't mix well. It usually ended up with the bus getting decapitated and the demigod running.

The little group by the bus stop slowly gathered into a crowd of fifteen or so people. An old lady came up to me.

"Has the bus come yet?" she rasped.

"No," I snapped. The woman's eyes glinted. Looking at her more closely, I realized she was the same woman from the train station, but her sweater was now deep plum, and her enormous dog was nowhere to be seen.

The woman turned away. I saw the crowd part before her, people texting on their Blackberries moving to the side without glancing up. The blanket of clouds dropped lower.

Flanked by Nico and Percy, I boarded the bus.

Worst choice ever.

Barely fifteen minutes into the ride, the bus broke down, the smell of sulfur billowing inside the stuffy bus. Exhaust swirled in the air. The driver cursed and hobbled the bus to the side of the road. Everyone filed out. I figured we were about fifteen miles away from where we'd started.

No way an old mortal granny could've walked fifteen miles fast enough to meet us where we broke down. But she was there anyways, her oversized bloodhound loping in circles around the bus, its leash unhooked.

One look at Nico and Percy told me they were thinking the exact same thing: run. We slipped as casually as possible away from the group, blended into the afternoon buzz in the city, and ran. I wasn't sure how far, but I counted at least six blocks without pausing.

"What do you think it is?" Percy panted when we stopped inside a shopping mall. Nico bent double, catching his breath.

"Nothing I've ever seen before," I wheezed, clutching my side. "Come on, we should –"

Just then the hound dog bounded through the automatic sliding doors, nose in the air. It spotted us, with eyes glowing an evil looking purple-red. It leaped and weaved its way through the crowd, which started muttering in annoyance. Nimbly dodging the throng of shoppers, it headed straight for us.

"Go," I finished, a little late. Percy uncapped Riptide, getting into a defensive stance. I pulled out my spear.

The dog started growing until it was the size of Cerberus, minus two heads. Its neatly clipped toenails elongated into wickedly sharp black claws, and its slobbery fangs grew to at least a foot long. I could see a tag the size of a textbook dangling from its chain link collar with letters big enough for even my dyslexia to work through easily: _Laelap. Call Tartarus if being chased by it. Excruciatingly painful death may occur if call is not placed in time._ It was followed by possibly the longest and most complicated number I'd ever seen, not counting _Pi._ The fur along its back bristled, and even its floppy ears perked up at the prospect of fresh demigod. It was so big there was no way it would fit back out of the door.

"Guys! The door!" I yelled, and sprinted towards it, shoving over innocent bystanders laden with bags. The hound howled in anger and sprang, easily clearing the space. The shoppers started shrieking; with horror or delight, I wasn't sure. I guessed they saw a magic trick put on by an absent magician or something.

The dog landed right in front of the doors, its underbelly easily brushing the top. It ducked its head and snarled at us, the reek of carrion on its breath. Without missing a beat, I dove to the polished tile floor and slid out under its belly. Percy and Nico followed suit.

"I think – I know – what this – is!" Nico shouted behind me. "Laelap!"

"What?" Percy yelled back. We were dashing through the parking lot now, hoping that the giant dog wouldn't fit through the doors. No such luck.

With an explosion only slightly less forceful than a hydrogen bomb, the entire front of the mall exploded, showering us with bike-sized chunks of shrapnel. The furious baying of the dog sounded behind us, laced with wailing alarms and flashing red lights.

I hollered to Percy, "Laelap! The dog that always caught its prey! It's chasing us!"

"You mean it's chasing YOU!"

"Nico, you pessimist! Now I'll die an excruciatingly painful death!" I tried to recall how Laelap was killed in the myths. No hero had ever conquered it . . .

It had something to do with a fox. A fox that was never caught – the _Teumessian fox._ The Hunters had once encountered the giant fox, but Artemis had waved us off before we could get caught up in the chase, telling us it was useless to hunt it. It still roamed free across the US.

I remembered seeing a giant fox out the window of the train. It was a desperate hope, but the best one any of us had.

"I saw the fox!" I gasped to Percy, who had caught up with me. He looked at me like I'd gone crazy.

"Just follow me," I grumbled, increasing my stride to pull ahead. We rounded a corner, and I saw the edge of the city just ahead of us. Pedestrians shouted, annoyed, as we whipped by. I headed for the place I saw the fox – in a sparse forest.

_Forest . . ._ _AHH!_

I skidded to a halt right in front of the first tree, just barely managing not to concuss myself on it. Percy shot by me, and I grabbed his arm. Nico crashed into me from behind, sending the three of us reeling through the forest.

A brown nose poked through the underbrush. I jumped away from it, because it was about four times bigger than an animal nose should be.

A huge fox head pushed its way through the vegetation. The rest of its towering body followed suit. It stood a couple feet shorter than Laelap, its body reddish gold with black feet and dark tipped ears. The end of its tail was black as well. Its amber eyes regarded us with a mix of curiosity and laziness. If you shrank it down, it would be no different from every other fox in the world. It was the Teumessian fox, all right.

Suddenly the fox's ears pricked up. Distant whining of alarms and sirens were drowned out by an immense crashing: Laelap had found us.

Growling savagely, the beast charged us at top speed, which was about as fast as the JR-Maglev, the fastest train in the world. Its huge paws struck up duststorms choked with leaves from the forest floor, clogging the air. I launched myself to the side, screaming, "Catch the fox!" at the top of my lungs. Percy and Nico looked at me like I'd officially lost it, then followed my lead and dove to the forest floor.

Laelap regarded me with evil purple eyes, torn between eating me and obeying my order. I took a leaf out of Annabeth's book and got to my feet. I spoke in a loud, steady voice, "Catch the fox." I'd never owned a dog, but I used my best obedience voice on the monster.

Laelap growled at me one more time, sent a bucketful of slobber my way, and let out a feral howl as it leapt for the Teumessian fox. The fox let out a surprised whine, then turned tail and nimbly fled. The massive hound dashed after it.

Suddenly, a bolt of power resonated through the entire city. Before me stood two normal-sized statues of a fox and a hound, frozen in action. They shimmered, and dissolved into silver dust. I remembered what had happened to Laelap and the fox in the myth.

Laelap had been set to catch this very fox millennia ago, but their destined fates created a paradox: the hound that always caught its prey hunting the fox destined to never be caught. Zeus, on the brink of insanity, turned them both to stone and placed them in the sky. I had absolutely no idea how they got out of the sky, but they were back in the heavens where they couldn't eat or evade me.

A squirrel pattered down the tree trunk and bared its gnawing teeth at me. I fairly screamed.

Nico grabbed my arm. "It's just a squirrel, Thalia."

I shook my head. "No, it's not just a squirrel. It's out to get me."

Percy looked at me strangely. "Thalia, it's a squirrel. How much harm can it do?"

I shuddered. "More than you want to know." The squirrel pattered to stand right in front of me, and bared its teeth again. I shrieked and leapt backward.

"We're getting out of this forest!" I said frantically, then, holding both the boys' forearms in a death grip, I ran as fast as I could back to the city.

"What is your problem?" Nico asked, half irritably, half threateningly. I spun around and faced him.

"You want to know what my problem is? Fine! Did you know I'm the only girl to ever survive after being kicked out of the Hunt?" I asked, almost wildly. "Of course Artemis would hate me! That forest is part of her territory. Next time, she'll do much worse than sending a buck-toothed squirrel to chew off my head!" Percy looked at me with a mix of understanding and amusement. I pointed a finger at him. "Don't say a word."

A howl sounded from the woods behind us. I saw dark shapes lumbering between the tree trunks. Dread settled in a cold, hard lump in the pit of my stomach.

I got that a certain few gods wouldn't want a certain few demigods traveling together. Hades was even mad enough to send a monster that caught whatever it chased after me. I didn't want to think about what Zeus might have in store for the son of Hades traveling with his daughter. And now that I'd trespassed into Artemis's domain, she was bound to send her subjects after me as well.

"Nico," I said slowly, "shadow travel us out of this city. But _only_ out of the city." Nico nodded, and walked briskly to a deserted alley. I braced myself and gripped his forearm, Percy doing the same on the other side.

Nico closed his eyes, and in a moment, we emerged somewhere I'd never been to before. I was lying on top of something cold and hard that was angled in a way that didn't make my back happy in the least. Groaning, I rolled over, fell off whatever I had been lying on, and landed in warm sluggish mud.

Sputtering, I dug my heels into the ground. Looking around, I saw that we were in a cemetery . . . or at least I thought it was a cemetery. It didn't have any tombstones as far as I could see, only crypts – some crumbling, some white marble, and all of them spattered with mud on the bottoms.

"Nico di Angelo, I swear, if you put me on that crypt on purpose I will slaughter you," I muttered, peering through the gloom. The weather hadn't changed, which probably meant we were still in Harrisburg. I squinted at the writing on one of the tombs, my dyslexia and the dimness making it hard to read, but I figured it out. It only took me about twenty minutes.

The writing was French.

"Hey," a voice said right next to me. "Where's the exit?"

I jumped and spun around, kicking up mud, my hand going for my bracelet. But it was just Percy. He didn't have the least amount of mud on him, whereas my side was covered in it.

"Uh, the exit? I've never been here before. Cemeteries aren't really my thing," I said, going back to looking around. I heard a faint rustle to my right. I marched that way.

Nico was slumped against a particularly crumbly crypt. He was lying on a patch of dry grass, which meant he was also mud-free. He opened his eyes.

"Are we in China?" he said around a yawn. He picked himself up, dusted himself off, and promptly started laughing at my appearance, until I socked him in the stomach.

"No, we're not in China. Why do you ask?" Percy said, looking at him curiously.

"I always seem to end up there when I mess up."

"Then you must've messed up differently this time, because I think we're in France." I pointed at the French writing on a crumbling tombstone nearby. Nico squinted at the marker. He sighed in relief.

"Why are you happy that we're in France?" I asked, miffed.

"I'm hardly ever happy nowadays. But if I were, I'd be happy because we're in New Orleans. They have some nice graveyards." Nico stumbled, his eyelids half-closed.

"New Orleans? As in the other side of the U.S. from Pennsylvania New Orleans?" I looked at him sharply.

"Yeah. How many other New Orleans do you know?" He covered a yawn with his hand.

"I told you OUT OF THE CITY!" I yelled. No wonder Nico was so tired he could barely stand. I was no expert in judging the effects of shadow-traveling, but doing it from the East coast to the Gulf of Mexico while bringing two passengers had to be rough. I calmed myself. Yelling wasn't going to help Nico.

Percy had already swung off his backpack and brought out his canteen of nectar. I rushed over just as Nico toppled to the ground, but I caught him with my arms around his chest. Percy dribbled some nectar into his mouth, and he perked up, a little more awake. I pushed him onto his feet. Disappointment passed through Nico's face for a brief moment.

"Come on, if we're in New Orleans, we might as well make the best of it." Percy herded us around the cemetery. "The exit's gotta be around somewhere . . ."

Smirking, Nico pointed left. "It's that way."

"You could've told us that earlier." Nico's smirk slid off his face. I imagined an unheard _plop_ as it joined the mud on the ground.

"Yes. I could've."

Fifteen minutes later, we found a motel that wasn't too expensive for our costs. I went to the ladies' room to wipe the mud off my favorite jacket. When I got back, the guys had just finished checking in.

"Hey," Percy said, looking at a paper. "We're room 402. Fourth floor."

I frowned. "One room?"

"Yeah. Two beds. Sorry."

I shrugged, unfazed. "Okay. Nico gets the floor."

"Hey!"

"Percy gets the floor."

"_Hey_!"

"You guys do rock paper scissors to decide which one gets the floor, because I am not sharing a bed with either of you."

"You get the floor."

"No," I said lightly, pressing the elevator button.

The boys went through seven games of rock paper scissors waiting for the elevator, thirteen on the elevator, and eighteen on the way to the room. Percy finally won the forty-second game by using a finger gun, but Nico called it a cheat, so they went back to playing.

"Ha! I win! Fifty-seven to fifty-six and a half!" Nico exclaimed. I looked at them quizzically.

"How do you win half a game of rock paper scissors?"

"Nico said that I can count the finger gun round as half a game, but he won, so he gets the floor," Percy explained.

Nico arched his eyebrows. "I won, so I get the bed, not the floor!"

"We agreed on the winner gets the floor!"

"Since when?"

"Since game forty-two!"

"Rematch! This time winner gets the bed!"

I laughed for the first time in a long while. It felt good to be carefree for once. I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt so relaxed, unburdened of any responsibility.

Rummaging through my bag, looking for my comb, I unzipped a pocket and something fluttered onto the bedspread. It was the picture of Luke and Annabeth. Tracing the smiles on their faces with a finger. I realized I did remember the last time I had been truly happy. It was with them.

I wondered if I'd ever have anyone like that again.

**I feel especially proud of this chapter . . . **


	5. I Am Messed With

Demigod dreams suck.

See, they can't just be nice dreams like having a barbecue or a luau on a monster-free beach somewhere. Demigod dreams have to be visions and omens and stuff about evil stuff making plans to destroy you. And even if it is a nice-looking dream, it's probably of a paradise where you're going to die.

This time, I was standing on a lush, grassy hill with wildflowers bending in the breeze. A huge oak stood on the crest of the hill, and a motherly-looking woman in a green and brown robe stood under it, fingertips pressed together under her chin. She was looking past me expectantly. I turned.

A young woman was rapidly scrambling up the hill. She had dark eyes filled with fear, and her long black hair was woven in a simple plait. A bundle wrapped in pink cloth was clutched to her chest. Black tufts of hair bounced out from inside the bundle, and I realized it was a baby.

Breathing hard, she hitched up her white robe and stumbled up the last few feet to where the woman in brown and green stood waiting, tapping her fingertips together.

"Please," she gasped, "please keep him safe. Kronos will only be fooled so long."

The older woman nodded in acceptance. "Let me see, daughter." She held out her arms for the baby, which was dutifully dropped into them.

Daughter?

"This is the youngest son, yes?" A son? Wrapped in a pink blanket? That seemed a little mixed up to me.

"His name is Zeus," the young woman said, leaning against the tree. She maintained a certain grace and power, even though she was bent double and her face showed nothing but anguish.

"Shine," the old woman mused. "Fitting, that he is the one to overthrow my son."

Rhea looked really desperate now. "Please, Mother Gaea, he is only a boy. You cannot kill him!" Tears welled up in her eyes.

"That was never my intention," Gaea said emotionlessly. "Very well." She waved a hand, and an elaborately carved wooden cradle materialized, suspended from one of the oaken branches by strands of twine. Placing baby Zeus in it, she turned back to Rhea.

"Kronos, however cruel a ruler, is my son. If _he_," she jabbed a gnarled thumb over her shoulder at the peacefully sleeping god, "treats his father the way Kronos did _his_ father, my wrath will be brought upon him." Rhea nodded vigorously, fearful yet still reassured.

Still stony-faced, Gaea turned into a flurry of dirt, like her molecules were being unglued, and disappeared into the clear sky.

Rhea crossed over to the cradle, and reached out a hand to the baby, caressing the black locks of hair.

"Don't be your father," she murmured. She gave one last fleeting look around at the hillside, and then she too vanished into the sky. The scene shifted.

I was back on Alcatraz Island, in the mansion floating above the prison. The vampire ninja in white, Rhea, was running through the darkened hallways, hair wildly whipping back and forth as she sprinted silently through the corridor.

"Blast that Mnemosyne, always having to sneak around," she muttered to herself, sharply turning into a room. Wrenching open a drawer of a magnificent ash wood dresser, she rummaged through the knicknacks in it before slamming it shut. Oddly enough, it didn't make a sound as it closed with such force the entire dresser shook.

Jerking on the intricate metal handle of another drawer, she snatched something out of it and clutched them to her chest, looking around wildly and bolting out of the room.

The drawer creaked closed ominously by itself.

* * *

><p>"This time we actually made it in and out of a building without blowing it up," Percy said in amazement after we'd stopped by Starbucks to get some nourishment. I nodded in agreement.<p>

"So," Nico said, looking around. "What now?"

"We go west. Duh," I said, starting in a random direction.

Nico coughed and pointed the other way. "That way's the shortest out of the city."

"I knew that," I muttered.

Luckily for us, we found an abandoned truck behind Starbucks that still had the keys in the ignition. Percy wouldn't let either me or Nico drive, because he said that he had a license and we weren't sixteen yet.

I regretted letting him drive as soon as I saw his definition of "fast".

"W-Would you slow d-down already!" I said, clinging onto the door handle for dear life and trying not to bite my tongue. Who knew how bumpy the highway was in New Orleans? Percy eased on the accelerator, and the ride smoothed a little.

"We're in a hurry," he said, peering out the windshield. Nico grumbled in the backseat.

By nightfall, we'd made it past Dallas, Texas, and were somewhere in Sweetwater. We decided just to set up camp and sleep in the back of the truck after parking it in an isolated thicket by the river.

Exhausted as I was, I still managed to dream.

It was sometime in the winter. I wasn't sure which winter it was; the years had already started to blend into an unending cycle of shoot, skin, sleep, repeat. I remembered it because there weren't so many monsters around, and most of the Hunters were carefree, except for the pessimistic one whose name I could never remember.

The forest we'd stopped in was an icy woodland palace. Leaves were suspended in frost crystals, and tree trunks and branches were coated in a slick sheen of ice, reflecting the moonlight off the glossiness of it all. The tents were set up by a small lake, murky green under a thick layer of ice with bubbly shapes frozen in it from when a flash freeze hit. It was pretty in an innocent way, and the darkness posed no threat to the band of girls camping in it.

One of them, Olive I think, dumped her stuff in a tent as soon as it was set up, then rubbed snow into the soles of her furry boots. She took off running toward the lake, gleefully shouting as she slid gracefully across the thick ice to the other side and back. A couple of the other Hunters, including me, laughed and joined in.

"Hey, Thalia! Watch me!" Olive giggled and pirouted at the edge of the ice. I grinned, even though I felt like my nose had frozen and broken off. It had been a long time since I'd gotten any fun, what with the war and everything. I think that was when I realized the Hunters really were one big happy family.

"That's nothing!" Ari waved Olive's performance away with a dismissive hand. I slid over to see what she had in mind. The Hunter started skating in a wide circle, elaborately jumping and sliding backwards sometimes.

"See?" she called, crossing her arms with a smug expression, like she was waiting for her gold medal. Suddenly something threw her off balance, and her slide faltered as she tripped over a lump of ice. Ari went flying off the surface of the lake, crashing into a huge, fluffy snowdrift and making an Ari-shaped hole in it.

"Hey, Ari! You alright?" I peered into the gap in the snow. Ari's eyebrow rose slightly, and like the mischief maker she was, she grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the snow with her. I grinned after spitting out a mouthful of the wet stuff, and tried to get the fluffy cold flakes out of my jacket with a frozen hand.

* * *

><p>I woke up fitfully, pushing against the confines of the sleeping bag. It wasn't even sunrise yet, and I was frozen stiff because the zipper had become undone in the middle of the night. I guess that explained why I had been dreaming about winter. But how the heck was it freezing cold in Texas in the middle of the summer?<p>

Pressing into my back, Nico stirred. I'd probably woken him up by punching him in my sleep.

"Hey," he murmured sleepily. "You 'kay?"

"Yeah," I reassured him quietly, shivering. "I'm okay."

"Bad dreams?"

"You could say that."

Nico rolled over and threw an arm over my side; whether to soothe me or for warmth, I wasn't sure. Either way, I stiffened. I wasn't afraid of anything. Okay, almost anything. And I'll admit it: One of those things was getting my hopes up, only to have them shoved through a blender time after time.

Like what I was afraid was happening now.

Stupid life.

I guess I must've said that out loud, because Nico shifted next to me and said quietly, "I know."

I shook my head, not turning to face him. I shut my eyes tightly, afraid of him seeing the emotions running through me. When I spoke, my voice was harsh.

"No you don't. When you grow up the way I did, you learn a lot. But it's not the things you want to learn – not the things you _should_ learn. When you grow up the way I did, you see a lot, too, but not the sights you want to see. Not at that age . . ." I nearly added, _You're lucky you don't remember._ I felt hot and cold at the same time, like I was coming down with something.

"Why did you quit the Hunters?" The question took me by surprise. I was silent for a long time, thinking about how to respond. It wasn't me quitting so much as some unknown force making me quit and then Artemis kicking me out.

Finally I just avoided the question. "Shouldn't you know?"

"I only saw that your soul didn't have that silvery aura around it. It doesn't tell me how you lost it."

"Whatever. It's none of your business," I snapped, but it lacked its usual edge. My voice sounded too tired to hold any sting in it.

Nico's hand stopped its movement up and down my arm. Rustling behind me indicated that he'd gotten up.

"We've got a long day. Come on," he said, offering me a hand. Reluctantly I took it and allowed myself to be pulled up.

Progress was progress, but I vowed that I wouldn't let it become anything else.

* * *

><p>"Arizona is boring," I complained. "It's just sand and cacti and stuff."<p>

"Arizona is terrible," Nico agreed. "I hate all this light."

"Arizona is where you are gonna stop arguing because this stupid thing is going to run out of gas in about three minutes," Percy groaned, banging his invulnerable head on the steering wheel, even though we were driving at eighty miles per hour on a deserted road with pointy plants on either side of it.

"I was agreeing with her," Nico protested, pointing at the back of my head.

I slapped his hand away. "Since when do you agree with me?"

"When the world is about to be flattened into a pancake."

"What did I do to deserve this?" Percy asked, theatrically shaking a fist at the sky. I snickered.

"Let's see, you rescued Annabeth, rode a flying pig, defended Olympus, destroyed a Titan army, bathed in the River Styx, and recently started going out with the coolest girl at camp. Don't you think you need some misery to brighten up your life?" I paused. "Not so recently, actually. Immortality does that to you." A scowl passed over my face momentarily, but I replaced it with a smirk.

"Fun," Nico said from the back seat as we passed another ghost town. "We get to crash in a bunch of moldy wooden houses built fifty years ago. I'm loving this gods-forsaken desert."

Percy squinted out the bug-splattered windshield. "Hey, was that a giant gecko I just saw over there?"

I leaned forward and tried to see something through the rippling of the heat waves. "No idea. Do geckos even live in the desert?"

"Maybe the heat is getting to your head," Nico suggested, kicking the back seat air conditioning controls. "Stupid thing's broken."

"Because you kicked it, dimwit," I said. "Percy, find a decent hotel."

"Yes ma'am," Nico snickered. I rolled my eyes at him and made a face.

Percy sighed. "Real mature, guys. Real mature."

We eventually did find a decent hotel room, with a TV and two beds and a couch that could be pulled out to make a third bed. It was a little dusty, and I found a (spiderless) spider web in one of the upper cabinets, but it worked. Percy had gone out to look for a supermarket, saying we needed more snacks and stuff. Personally, I thought he needed some time to himself, so I didn't protest.

I sprawled on the bed I'd called dibs on, propped up on the pillows, flipping through the channels on the TV. I paused on Spongebob for a few seconds, then kept channel surfing. The bathroom door creaked open, spilling yellow light into the room, even though it was late.

"Hey," Nico said, plopping down on the bed next to me. He must've just gotten out of the shower, because his long black hair was wet and dripping onto the shoulder of my T-shirt.

"What do you want now?" I snapped tiredly. Nico recoiled.

"I thought I might make an effort to get along without arguing, but seriously, forget it." He made to get up. I grabbed his arm.

"No, wait. I'm sorry. I'm just tired . . ." I trailed off. Nico settled back down beside me. We lounged there for some time, the silence between us almost peaceful for once. It was . . . nice.

"These guys are idiots," Nico finally said after a while of us staring at National Geographic. It showed a jeep mounted with a bunch of wacky weather equiptment – mostly weather balloons, as far as I could tell – driving on a desolate road toward the horizon where a thunderstorm was brewing. "Who the heck would try and get electrocuted on purpose?"

"I once stuck my finger in a light socket," I said absently, watching as the weather balloon floated out of sight into the dark clouds, only to get hit by a blast of lightning.

Nico looked at me like I'd just announced I needed him to bake me pink sugar cookies. "Why would you do that?"

"Because my finger fit in the socket. Duh." We snickered at the expressions on the meteorologists' faces as the thunderstorm suddenly cleared up, revealing clear blue sky.

I snorted. "They have no clue."

"I bet even I could do a better job," Nico scoffed.

"You could not. You'd get fried to a crisp within ten miles of one of those temper tantrums. You'd never catch a storm, or whatever those confused mortals are doing."

Nico looked at me slyly out of the corner of his eye and pushed his wet bangs out of his face. "I'd catch one eventually."

I frowned at him. "What do you mean?" He was almost uncomfortably close now.

Nico wordlessly answered my question by kissing me.

I was stunned into sitting there, shocked, until common sense shook me into jerking away from him. What was he doing? He'd just . . . He'd just . . . I couldn't wrap my mind around it.

"Did you just . . ."

"Kiss you? Yes." Nico raised an eyebrow. "Why, is there a problem with that?"

I rolled off the bed and started pacing, brow furrowed and staring at my boots. "Yes. Yes, yes, yes, there is a problem with that. You – me – I –" I jerked my finger back and forth between us unconciously. "Holy Tartarus, what am I supposed to make of this?"

Nico watched me with an amused look on his face. "Kiss me again?"

I shook my head. "No, I can't. I'm not . . . I mean, it's – It's you!" I finally burst out.

"What about me?" His amused look had been replaced by one of confusion and hurt.

"You kissed me!"

"Yeah, we've established that, can we move on now?"

I stomped over to the bed. "You don't get it. Do you know how much it'll hurt if somebody decides to beat up THAT again?" I pointed at my heart. "No! That's why I keep everyone away! That's why I joined the Hunters! And now that I've quit, _you_ come along, and with my luck you're going to stomp me into the dirt!"

"I would never do that!" he objected, his eyebrows raised in shock.

"And I know that how?" I asked quietly, solidly meeting his dark eyes.

Nico opened his mouth, then closed it, looking around the room as though searching for the right words to say. I took his silence as an answer in itself.

"Don't try it again," I said, crossing the room and opening the door. Maybe a Coke would help calm me down.

"You're still sore over Luke, aren't you." Nico's voice carried clearly across the room, hints of anger and scorn embedded in it, like somebody had insulted him.

I slowly turned my head to look at him. I wasn't sure what my face showed. Anger, fear, hurt? Whatever it was, it told him that he'd crossed a line that I'd solidly glued down and gone over with marker, and for good measure, hammered a fence with barbed wire on top of.

"Maybe I am. Maybe I'm not," I said, masking my hurt with scorn. "But why should you care?"

"I'm sorry," he whispered, mortified. "I didn't mean to -"

I shoved away his apology. "You never mean to! Nobody ever means to hurt people, but they do it anyway. And you know what?" I glared at him, my vision starting to blur with tears I didn't want to be there and refused to let fall.

Nico shook his head wordlessly, his face still stricken.

"You can walk around with your expensive stuff and your smooth-talking Italian, but under all that, you're just another jerk." I pointed to the door. "Get out of my room."

I closed my eyes, rubbing them with clenched fists, and when I opened them again, Nico was gone.

When he silently slipped under the covers of the bed farthest away from me at one in the morning, I feigned sleep and stared at him through slitted blue eyes for the rest of the night.

* * *

><p>"Guys," Percy pleaded for the umpteenth time, "what happened while I was gone last night? You're both out of whack."<p>

"Sure, Percy, I'm out of whack," I snipped. Jerking a thumb over my shoulder, I continued. "That halfwit you call a friend drove me to it."

"You've got it wrong," Nico's voice said, ever sarcastically. "You were already out of whack. I just gave you a good little push into complete loss of sanity range."

"Says the guy whose siblings ended up buying their own personal asylum. It's a genetic deformation."

"If I reach the edge of insanity, I'll go back, drag you there, then push you over it and run away laughing."

"Not if I chuck you into Tartarus first. See if your big scary daddy can save you from that."

"If you ever set foot in the Underworld, it'll be because I'm tying you up and throwing you in a cell in my father's palace. I hear he's upgraded it so you get stale water every fifty years."

"What a comfort. Now if you don't shut your reckless mouth, I'll do it for you, jerk."

"STOP IT!" Percy finally exploded, slamming his hand onto the steering wheel. "You guys are both acting like kindergarteners!"

"Kindergarteners with serious threats," Nico put in. I gave him my best glare and sneer combination.

"Still kindergarteners! Now pull yourselves together, because we're finishing this quest and that's that!" Percy punctuated this by flooring the accelerator for a couple seconds. I thanked the gods that there were no other cars on the road, then went straight back to sulkily fiddling with my bracelet.

"Fine," I said at last, keeping a dangerously loose hold on my temper. "For you, Percy. And for the quest. And none of us are quitting, and none of us are chickening out." I directed the last two words at Nico, who was slouching in the back seat, but he sensibly kept his mouth shut. But I didn't fail to notice his mood growing darker by the second.

Then again, I wasn't afraid to follow through on my threats.

* * *

><p><strong>I'm seriously starting to lose interest in this.<strong>


	6. Nico Becomes Bird Food, So We're Even

I can honestly say that the next two days were the most awkward and uncomfortably tensioned of my life, and that's including the time I walked in on my mom and one of her boyfriends in the living room when I was seven.

Nico and I weren't talking at all now. So far I hadn't spoken a word to him for thirty-six hours , fourteen minutes, fifty-three seconds and counting (after a while, I didn't have anything better to do besides count). Even so, the tension was so thick it wouldn't be long until we suffocated on it.

"Almost there . . . almost there . . . almost there . . ." I chanted through gritted teeth, my grip on the steering wheel so tight my knuckles were white and I was surprised the wheel hadn't broken into pieces yet.

"Can 'there' be a bathroom, please?" Percy asked, a pained look on his face.

I kept my glare on the road. "You're supposed to be good with water. So hold it."

"My powers don't extend to that."

"Then your powers suck."

"Percy, tell her she's been driving nonstop for eight hours since six in the morning," Nico said, his voice bored.

"Go kill whatever is making that noise in the back seat," I said to Percy.

"Um, I don't want to."

"Too bad," I retorted. Percy gave me a tired look. Suddenly I felt guilty; I'd dragged him into a quest when he'd just gotten some peace, and now Nico and I were playing tug-of-war with him and forcing him to be the mediator when he probably didn't even want to be saving the world again. "Sorry," I said quietly. To pass over the sappy moment, I continued, "So what did the scum say?"

"He said that you've been driving nonstop for eight hours since six in the morning."

"Then tell him that I'm not stupid like some people and that he can shut his trap if he wants to keep it."

"Do I have to?"

"Yes."

I kept the accelerator floored while Percy relayed my message to the back seat. The sooner we got this quest over with, the better.

"Are we _any_ closer to a bathroom? Or a city? Or civilization?" Percy asked imploringly for the fifth time in two minutes. He was practically hopping up and down in his seat. "I mean, you've been driving like crazy for hours!"

"Then you shouldn't have let me drive," I snapped.

"Percy's head would have been bitten off if he took the driver's seat," Nico called helpfully.

I almost decided to take out my spear and stab it through his stupid head right then and there, but settled for chucking the nearest heavy object into the back seat, which happened to be the GPS. Not like we needed it anyway.

"Okay," Percy announced, rubbing his hands together. "This is what we're going to do. Thalia, get in the back. Nico, be quiet and don't agonize her. Me, I am driving. Pull over, would you?"

"No."

"Do it," Percy said, unusually insistent. "Come on; just make all our lives easier."

I opened my mouth for another 'no', but it turned into a yawn instead. Suddenly I was aware of how sore my eyes were from the glare of the road, and that my finger muscles would probably never move from their curled position around the wheel again. And my lower body was more or less completely numb.

"Fine," I muttered, biting down another yawn and feeling my eyelids shutting on me. The truck screeched to the side of the road without slowing down. Slamming the door behind me, I blinked in the sudden brightness of the afternoon desert sun. Black tire marks stretched for ten feet on the asphalt.

Styx, I was so messed up.

With a suppressed sigh, I pulled open the back door and climbed in, hissing as the hot metal burned the skin on my hand. Nico didn't bother moving from his spot in the middle seat, instead assessing me coolly through his lashes and playing with one of his earbuds. I narrowed my eyes and slouched. His lip quirked.

It stayed that way for another hour or two. Nico would look at me through the corner of his eye, I'd glare at him, and he'd give me a half-smirk. When it happened for the _n_th time, I threw my head back, grimacing at the ominous cracks it got me when I stretched. Nico dodged my elbow.

Resting my head on the hot glass of the window, I closed my eyes almost all the way and crossed my legs to minimize the space I took up. It wasn't that I didn't want to sleep, because I did, but I was bordering on paranoid when it came to being in close proximity with Nico.

At the moment, six inches was way too little space between us.

_"Had your eyes wide open . . ."_

The sound leaked out of one of his earbuds. Glancing at him, I saw that his fingers were frozen around the cord. He was staring straight ahead, lips pressed tightly together.

_"What you don't understand is I'd –"_

The music was abruptly cut off as Nico ripped the cord out of his iPod, automatically putting the song on pause. His eyes slid to me for a brief second, then back to his white-knuckled grip on the electronic.

Stomach churning, I sank even further into the seat and squeezed my eyes shut.

* * *

><p>I was confused for a few moments after I woke up, mostly because I didn't remember falling asleep. And because my face wasn't pressed to hot glass.<p>

Instead, it was resting on smooth, cold leather.

Cracking open one eye, I took in as much as I could through my lashes. Messy black hair obscured my vision, but that didn't make sense, because my hair wasn't long enough to even reach my cheekbones, and it was usually too wild to get in my face anyway. I was wearing a T-shirt, too, not a leather jacket (even if I was, I'd have to bend my neck at a killer angle to rest my head on my own shoulder).

So . . . I had somehow shifted in my sleep so that I was using Nico as a pillow.

Well, this was awkward.

My whole body tensed as a shadow passed over the car. Nico turned his head to look at me, eyebrows raised and a smirk playing across his lips.

"Sleep well?"

I shook my head, pushing myself up a little too forcefully. _Like you'd care_, I thought. I tensed again, sensing that something was off.

"What?" Nico asked, studying my face carefully. I shied away from his gaze and looked out the window, catching a glimpse of the same razor-sharp shadow whipping across the ground next to the road. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled.

"Get down!" I shouted, yanking both of us down as the glass on Nico's side of the car exploded. Slapping my bracelet, I smashed through my window as he sliced our seat belts in one coordinated move. We tumbled through the jagged opening as Percy slammed on the brakes with a shout and got out through his door. Landing on my shield together, Nico and I skidded for a couple feet, the metal sparking against the asphalt.

"Holy Poseidon!" Percy shouted, rolling into prickly bushes as a clawed foot crushed the roof of the car like a soda can. I saw the gleam of bronze slash upward even as I began sprinting toward him, Nico sticking to me like, well, a shadow.

_"CAW!"_

The shriek ripped through the hot, dry air. It was so loud and high-pitched it shattered the remaining glass in the windows and made my eardrums wish they'd never been born. Or made. Could eardrums be born?

All three of us hit the dirt, desperately pressing our hands to our ears in a failing attempt to block out the horrible noise. Sand flew into my face as a giant feathered wing swept toward Nico and I, closely followed by a hooked bronze beak and a beady black eye. I froze for a moment at the intelligence the giant bald eagle stared at me with.

My ever helpful brain drew an exaggerated Grinch-worthy eyebrow and evil grin on it mentally. Shaking it off, I leapt to the side, brandishing my spear with a "Hi-yah!" The eagle squawked indignantly, pushing off the ground and beating its wings powerfully.

"What the Hades is that?" Percy shouted, ducking sharp feathers and wickedly curled talons. The eagle released another screech that would've made Apollo's sonic arrows bright green with envy.

"Just fight it!"

"It's going up!"

The monstrous bird was rising higher and higher into the air, settling into a predatory circle. The three of us moved toward each other uneasily until we were back to back to back in a triangle, heads tilted back to look upward.

"Styx," Nico muttered. His bangs were plastered to the side of his face with sweat from the merciless sun. My thin T-shirt was getting uncomfortably hot, too. "It's coming for me."

I understood in an instant. "I can fight my own battles," I growled to the sky, infuriated that I'd only get his attention when something like _this_ happened. "Especially this one!" The eagle gave a loud, piercing cry, as if it disagreed with me.

"Guys," Percy said cautiously, "is there something I'm missing here? Because I want to know what's going on. Right now."

"SCATTER!" I tackled Nico to the ground, throwing Aegis above us – and not a moment too soon. The eagle pulled out of its dive-bomb at the last second, realizing that it couldn't punch through my shield to get to its target. Its hind talon still hit us with enough force to send us reeling through the brush.

"Ah!" Nico hissed in pain. I scrambled to my feet, casting a glance upward. A winged silhouette against the blinding sun assured me that I had a couple seconds until the monster's next attack. I turned back to the ground, deliberately kneeling so that my shadow fell over Nico's face.

"Where?" I fumbled with the tiny bottle of hand sanitizer I kept hooked to the loop of my jeans, urging my fingers to move faster.

"I'm fine. Don't bother." Nico tried to push himself up, but thudded back to the ground with a curse.

"That constipated look on your face begs to differ, stupid. Where?"

"I'm FINE," he said through gritted teeth.

"No you're NOT," I countered, bordering on shocking him senseless just to make the job easier.

"I don't need your help, alright!"

"Why don't I just leave you here to bleed to death, then?"

"Why don't you?"

I opened my mouth for a retort, but my vocal cords froze. Why didn't I just leave him here to bleed to death, if he didn't want me there? Come to think of it, why was I trying to help in the first place after he said what he had?

For once, I didn't have an answer.

The nectar bottle was weakly pulled from my hand. A gasp drew my attention back down. In an instant, Percy was next to me, taking the bottle from Nico and forcefully twisting the cap off. I caught the scent of hot chocolate from the emergency nectar.

Nico's face twisted when I tugged up his shirt, far beyond caring that I didn't like him right now. I drew in a breath. The cut wasn't deep enough to be fatal, but it stretched from his side to the middle of his chest, following the curve of his bottom rib.

"Thalia," Percy muttered, concentrating on washing out the wound with a shred of fabric dipped in the nectar. "Watch the bird. I'll take care of this."

I stood up, suddenly itching for a fight. In the back of my mind I knew that I should have been tending to Nico, since out of the three of us I probably had the most experience with medical stuff. But if Percy had wanted me to do it, he would've said so, so I trusted that he knew what he was doing.

"More nectar," I heard one of the two mumble behind me.

I sprinted the little distance across the road to the crushed remains of the car. Tossing my spear to my shield hand, I stuck my arm through the twisted, glassless window frame and rooted around for any of our backpacks. Just as I worked a bottle of nectar out, the eagle's shadow swooped over me, whipping my hair back and gritty dirt into my face.

"You want him?" I screamed at it, the outline of the bird burned into my vision. "You want him? Then BRING IT!"

The eagle shrieked and began another nosedive. From here, I couldn't tell which one of us it was after, but I was betting Nico.

In a storm of brown and white feathers as long as my arm, the monster descended again. Its wingspan stretched twice the length from me to Percy and Nico, which was a good fifteen feet. Fighting my way through the feathers, I slashed blindly with my spear until it hit something solid, but hollow – bird bones. I stabbed upward, shielding my face with Aegis and sending a burst of electricity up the spear.

The sheer size and force of the eagle's spaz attack knocked me to the ground. The asphalt met the back of my head in a rather unfriendly way, and the sudden jarring made me drop my spear. I coughed, rolling backward to get out of the frantically beating wing's way.

"I'm not a fish! I don't _smell_ like a fish! Why do you eagles eat fish anyway? TAKE THAT!"

Running toward Percy's voice, I snatched my spear from under the eagle's long tail feathers, narrowly avoiding getting shish-kebabbed by its lengthy, crooked back talon. Suddenly I was pulled down into the shrubbery. A powerful wing sliced through the air where my head was moments ago, spattering me with blood.

"How is it?" I asked Nico shortly. He got to his feet a little shakily.

"Nectar fixed it up." He winced as he bent over to pick up his sword. "Still stings a bit, though."

I twirled my spear and slammed the butt of it into the ground. "Come on."

Percy came jogging out of the dust, Riptide in hand. "Hey," he coughed. "I got its wing." We backed up a couple feet to a safe distance to get our first good look at the monster.

It was like a gigantic eagle version of a Stymphalian bird – bronze talons, bronze beak, beady red eyes. One massive wing was dripping with golden blood from a slice running the length of it, and the other had ruffled, smoking feathers. Its legs were covered in scratches, and the talons tipping it gouged deep marks into the asphalt with a sound like nails on chalkboard. The white feathers on its head weren't very white anymore, instead streaked with grit and blood. It opened its beak, revealing a bright red mouth and a pointed tongue, and screeched.

I was getting really sick of its screeches.

When my eardrums had stopped ringing, the eagle hopped forward, wings outstretched. It regarded Nico with a triumphant gleam in its eye, and brandished the bloody wing.

"Ichor," Nico said, wiping the golden blood off his face.

"Great," I added, scowling.

"We can't kill it," Percy finished, shifting his sword from hand to hand.

"But we can wound it enough so that it can't move," I suggested.

Apparently, the eagle didn't like it, because it insisted on another murder attempt on my ears.

"Or . . ."

"Or?"

"Or we could tame it."

Nico and I turned to Percy with disbelieving expressions. "Tame _that_ thing?" he asked.

"Wait a second. We did it with the Eury-whatever boar." I pointed to Percy, who nodded. "That might actually work, except this time it's after Nico's guts."

"I'd like to keep my guts in my body, thank you very much."

The eagle hopped forward again. We stepped back.

"We do need transportation," Nico said dubiously. "But riding _that_ means flying."

Thinking about flying on a wild eagle that could easily dump us off its back and then eat us didn't do anything good for my fabulous lunch of granola bars three hours ago.

Percy snapped his fingers, then quickly leveled his sword when the eagle's attention shifted to him, alerted by the sound. "I got it. We can, um, cut up its wings, so it can't fly, and ride it! I've heard of people riding ostriches, and Thalia and I have ridden a boar before, so why not an eagle?"

"Ostrich riding?"

"There's one little problem with that plan, Kelp Head." I pointed to the already healing cuts monster's wings with my spear. "It's got ichor."

"But," Nico picked up, "it'll take a while to heal a tendon. I vote Thalia goes and slices."

"I vote you go and get sliced." Because seriously, I didn't want to go anywhere near that giant bundle of malice and feathers.

"Eagle. Zeus. You. Bird. Go," Nico said shortly by way of explanation, giving me a push. I scowled at him, but the eagle had already fly-hopped up to (or down to?) me. If birds could snarl, this one certainly was.

"All right, then, birdie," I muttered. "Just you and me." The bird and I had a brief staring contest, which wasn't so much a staring contest as an I'm-gonna-eat-you-no-you're-not silent message glare exchange.

Abruptly, the eagle reared back like it was going to peck at me and smush me into a little spot of demigod on the pavement. Seizing the chance, I ducked under the hard, primary flight feathers and leapt onto the eagle's back, praying that it wouldn't take off before I could get to its wing. I would die if it launched into flight, and probably out of my fear of heights rather than falling off and cracking my skull open.

Fortunately, that didn't happen. What did happen was that the monster decided to have another spaz attack. In a flurry of feathers and dust, I found myself Aegis-less and gripping the joint where its wing met its shoulders with both knees and one hand. I gritted my teeth to make sure I didn't bite my tongue off with the way I was bouncing around. It was only pure luck that I managed to cut the tendon in its wing I was going for, albeit messily.

My muscles gave in at the sight of the ground bobbing up and down ten feet below, and I tumbled off the eagle with just enough momentum to keep rolling until I was too far to get beat up by the eagle's wings. Shakily, I made my way back to the boys, after taking several deep breaths and trying really hard not to puke.

"Thanks so much," I muttered to Nico.

"You're welcome," he shot back.

"Original, Ghost King."

Nico opened his mouth for another retort, but Percy clamped his hand down over it. "One wing enough?" he asked.

I jerked my head 'yes'. "Should be. Getting it to stop is opening a whole other can of worms." I cursed as I spotted the glint of my shield flying through the air. "Heads up!" The metal passed so close over our heads it ruffled my hair.

"Man, how long until it calms down?" Percy squinted against the setting sun at the eagle, which was still spazzing out.

I shrugged. "Couple centuries, maybe." At the look on his face, I added, "Until it stops trying to find us and put us through its digestive system. I'd say at sundown we can start riding it." We stared at the eagle, which was trying attempt after attempt to lift off and spiraling down with an agitated squawk each time.

"Yippee," Nico said moodily. "We get to be eagle cowboys in the middle of the night."

* * *

><p>After retrieving our now extremely smushed, crumpled, and beat up backpacks from the wreck of the car and collecting some dry shrub to burn, we set up camp for the next couple of hours until sundown came. The sky was clear for the first time all week, so we could see the early stars. It was only punctuated by the occasional <em>CAW<em> of frustration from the eagle.

"You know, this might actually be relaxing, except for the ginormous bird freaking out over there," Nico commented, lying on his back with his legs outstretched and his hands behind his head.

"Percy, hand me that soda can, would you?" I reached around the fire for an empty can of Pepsi, but drew back my hand when my sleeve came too close to the flames. "I don't want to burn up."

"Wouldn't that have already happened with all the electricity in you?"

I snorted. "I'm not a piece of wood. Water."

Nico tossed me a bottle. "Where are my thanks?"

"In the trash can." I opened the bottle and poured some water into the soda can. "Hey, do those spitfires with the forked branches actually work?"

"I dunno. Never tried," Percy replied. I held the can of water over the flames experimentally, to see if the flames were hot enough to get steam. It was, but the heat spread to the aluminum and burned my bare hand.

"Anybody got cloth?" I asked, shaking my hand vigorously and hissing at the sting.

"You want the rest of my mutilated shirt?" Nico asked, tossing me a skull T-shirt that was sliced so badly it was held together by what probably totaled to an inch of fabric.

"Your shirt." I shrugged and wrapped the dark cloth around the aluminum, being careful not to catch it on fire. After a few seconds of holding it above the fire, the steam began rising again. The last rays of golden sunlight caught it perfectly. "Drachma."

"How much are you going to give me for it?" Nico smirked. I rolled my eyes. He pulled a drachma out of his pocket with a little difficulty and tossed it through the mist. At least it saved me the trouble of doing that.

"O Iris, goddess of the rainbow, accept my offering. Show me Annabeth Chase, at Camp Half-Blood," I said, hoping that the setting sun wouldn't cut the message short.

The mist shimmered with the rainbow, and a picture of the pier with the beach and forest behind it appeared. Annabeth was nowhere to be seen.

"Annabeth?"

"Thalia? Thank the gods, you're okay." Her voice came from the image, but I still couldn't see her. Then I laughed.

"Yankees cap, huh?"

"Oh, I forgot," Annabeth said sheepishly, shimmering into view as she pulled her invisibility cap from her head. Her blonde curls whipped from side to side as she looked around. "It's almost curfew. Where's Percy?"

Percy was at my side in an instant. "Right here, Wise Girl." He grinned, his face relaxing immediately. I'll admit I was jealous that he could just look at someone and forget all his worries like _that_. I almost snapped my fingers for emphasis on my thought.

"Good, you're not dead, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth said, though she was grinning in relief too. "And Nico?"

"What he said." Nico waved two fingers at the Iris-message.

"So. Any particular reason for calling? The harpies'll be out soon, I'm skiving off on reports, and I've got Chiron and Dionysus convinced you're down in the Underworld, you're visiting your mom, and you're staying at my place," Annabeth started briskly, pointing to each of us in turn. "How's it going? Where are you guys, anyway?"

I started to say that we were absolutely perfectly fine, which was a total lie, but Percy beat me to it. "We've made it to Arizona. We got attacked by this giant eagle, but none of us know what it is," he explained, waving a hand in the direction of the bird. By now, it had settled to weakly cawing and flapping its good wing.

Annabeth frowned. "It's too dark to see from my end. Describe it, would you? I know a couple of myths that mention an eagle."

"Well, it's big," Nico began. "And vicious. It tried to slice me open."

"It succeeded in slicing you open," I corrected. Annabeth blew out an exasperated breath, rolling her eyes good-naturedly.

"Sorry, but I need a better description than that," she laughed. The three of us started talking at once, all trying to cram in our part. Annabeth held up a hand. "Okay then. Thalia, you tell."

"Why not me?" Percy complained. "I'm your boyfriend."

"With a brain full of seaweed," she teased. "You can go after."

I nudged Percy. "I'm better than you," I mock boasted, then dropped back to being serious. "The eagle. It looks like a bald eagle, with bronze talons, a bronze beak, red eyes, a thirty-foot wingspan. Brown and black feathers on the body, white on the tail and head."

"And ichor," Nico put in.

"And ichor," I amended.

Annabeth tapped her faded, navy blue cap against her bottom lip, frowning. "It's immortal. That narrows it down. Just a second." She closed her eyes. I could almost hear the gears whirring as she sorted through files of information stored in her head, except that Nico's quiet breathing over my shoulder blocked it out.

"I got it. A theory, at least," Annabeth announced, opening her eyes. "That's probably the Caucasian eagle. One of Echidna's brood."

Percy shuddered. "I don't want to know who the father was."

"Some of the myths say it was sent by Zeus to eat Prometheus's liver every day," she continued.

"But Prometheus said that those were the vultures when he gave Percy Pandora's _pithos._ Jar. Whatever," I said, looking to Percy for confirmation. He nodded.

"It could be both," Annabeth said dubiously. "Wait a sec." Her eyebrows drew together in thought. "There's also a really small story – you know the Ophiotaurus?"

"Bessie?" Percy asked.

"Sure." Annabeth smiled at the shortened name. "Zeus sent an eagle to snatch his entrails before they could be sacrificed in the first Titan war, right? The myths don't go into detail about the eagle, but it's possible that that's it," she jerked her chin at the restless shape behind us. "It would explain how it went after Nico especially."

"Thanks," Nico grumbled.

"No problem. Thalia, I want to talk to you," Annabeth stated. She glanced between me and Nico suspiciously.

"Sure." I shrugged.

"Oh," Nico said after an awkward pause. "I'll just, um, go look at the eagle."

Percy started after him. "I'll make sure it doesn't eat him."

As soon as the boys were out of earshot, Annabeth said quietly, "What's going on?"

I shifted, knowing she'd recognized the tension between Nico and I. "What do you mean, what's going on? We're fine. All three of us."

"Thalia." She raised her eyebrows.

"Annabeth." I crossed my arms, pressing my lips into a thin line.

"_Tha-alia_," she sing-songed, smirking.

"Annabeth," I scowled.

"Thalia." She used her conscending tone.

"Annabeth," I whined.

"Thalia." She looked at me expectantly.

I threw up my hands. We didn't have enough Iris-messaging time to keep this up. "It's Nico, all right? We got in an argument. The big guy up there tried to get rid of him. End of story."

Annabeth's lips formed into an 'O' of understanding. "Offended you, didn't he?"

"You could say that," I muttered, casting my eyes downward.

"Hey, when you guys get back, you're giving me the full story."

My lips tugged themselves into a smile. I could still see a tiny bit of the stubborn seven-year-old Annabeth I remembered best in her. "Never."

"Oh, it must have been _bad_ . . . Want me to guess?" The mood lightened with her playful smile.

"Oh, no. No no no no no," I laughed, though I was actually a little worried she would figure it out. Before I could say more, the steam dissapated along with the last rays of the sun. The last thing I got from Annabeth was a knowing wink before the image faded.

"Hey, you two! Get your butts over here; I'm not carrying all three bags," I called to the boys, who took their sweet time walking over. I tossed them their backpacks and put out the fire, kicking dirt over the ashy remains.

There was only one little problem when we reached the eagle: It was sitting on a pile of shrub and Joshua trees and sand with its head tucked under its good wing.

"Rock paper scissors on who gets to wake it up?"

"We could postpone eagle cowboy time to morning instead."

"We might as well rock paper scissors on who gets to be bird food."

"No thanks."

"Way to go, birdie."

* * *

><p><strong>I'm seriously considering putting this on hiatus. Or discontinuing it. Working on some other projects right now, and this just kinda lost its appeal. <strong>


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